The recently released South African Tourism Report contains SA Tourism’s summation of the tourism market and one of the charts summarizes Key Brand metrics such as Memorable, Adventurous, Natural Wildlife Experience, Welcoming People You Can Interact With, A Wide Variety of Experiences, Breathtaking, Enriching, Unique, An Authentic Travel Experience, Value for Money and Safety Security.
Across the board South Africa is consistently ranked by tourists from Netherlands, Germany, UK, France, USA, India, Australia, Italy, China, Japan, Kenya and Nigeria as number one or two for being an adventurous country with outstanding natural wildlife experiences. In 3rd and 4th place South Africa is ranked highly for offering a wide variety of experiences and breathtaking scenery.
Compared to 2009, South Africa’s ranking improved in India and Italy, whereas it declined in three of its core markets – Netherlands, Germany, and USA.
For me the shocker was this metric: ‘Welcoming People You Can Interact With’ – with an overall decline across all markets AND a dismal ranking of between 7 and 10th place. The dismal ranking for ‘Safety and Security’ is, understandably, a legacy that we will have to carry for a while, but, to be rated as unfriendly just mystifies the hell out of me.
One other important metric that we are failing at is the concept of ‘Value for Money’. Almost everyone in the world has the desire to see an ‘African Sunset’ on their bucket list – there must be a way to fulfill that desire by reducing the long haul cost which is a significant contributor in the value for money equation.
SA Tourism summarised their key indicators thus:
- Tourist arrivals for 2010 were 8,073,552 – a growth of 1,061,687 (+15.1%) versus 2009. South Africa outperformed the global market by more than 8%.
- The domestic market was affected by the financial crisis as domestic tourism decreased by 8% in 2009 with 30 million trips being undertaken compared to the 33 million in 2008. Domestic tourists also tightened their spending in 2009 as total revenue declined by 14% to R22 billion.
- South Africa maintained a similar level of awareness in 2010, as was reported for 2009; however our performance dipped slightly on positivity and short-term consideration in 2010, compared to 2009. We performed exceptionally well in the period immediately after the World Cup, but then moderated down back to pre-World Cup levels by November 2010.
- We have reached just over 1.7 billion consumers in 2010/11 with a combination of Brand TVC’s, vignettes, outdoor executions and online impressions.
The Deputy Minister of Tourism, Tokozile Xasa, stated in Port Elizabeth on 13 October that an increasing focus on domestic tourism will make the industry sustainable. Below is a summation of domestic tourism’s performance over the four years from 2007 to 2010:
VFR = ‘Visits to Friends and Relatives’
According to the Parliamentary Monitoring Group:
Overall, South African Tourism felt that it had a number of significant successes, and was financially sound. It did however identify key problems with the initial implementation of its automated financial system Oracle. In relation to this South African Tourism also had problems with managing the oversight of its financial accounting which had initially led to the Auditor-General to express concern that South African Tourism’s financial reporting was flawed and did not fully comply with all requirements of the Public Finance Management Act. Furthermore, there was still much work to be done regarding improvement of domestic tourism and grading of establishments.
Members of the Parliamentary Committee raised serious concerns regarding the Auditor-General’s statement that South African Tourism had not fully complied with the requirements of the relevant laws for public financial management. Although South African Tourism had explained that the statements in this regard had been amended once certain corrections were made, the Committee noted that this needed to be provided in writing to the Committee.
Members also raised concerns around opportunities for small, medium and micro enterprises to establish themselves as bed and breakfast establishments and to be eligible for grading as it was not entirely clear exactly what the process was. Members also noted that domestic tourism needed to be encouraged.
The Chairperson raised the issue of the migration from Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT) to the Department of Tourism. He asked how the Department migrated in terms of the assets and whether it had been properly accounted for.
The Acting Director General stated that for the SAT it was not an issue. SAT as an entity always operated as an entity, therefore it managed the assets as an entity. When the new Department was established as a separate portfolio, the main changes happened between DEAT and the Tourism Department. The entity had come over by the proclamation signed by the President, and was now reporting directly to the Minister. There was no problem with the assets.
