South Africa will have to attract an additional 1 million foreign tourists on average every single year for the next seven years if it is to reach the downwardly revised target of 15.6 million foreign tourists’ arrivals by 2030.
This is a mounting task for an industry that is currently battling a number of headwinds not of its own doing.
Last year, the tourism industry revised the annual arrivals target down from 21 million to 15.6 million by 2030 and moved the target for 21 million visitors forward to 2035.
Rising input costs on hospitality and accommodation businesses that have to run diesel generators due to crippling power cuts, safety and security concerns, as well as insufficient overseas and domestic leisure demand were issues of concern for the industry in the first half of this year, in spite of a significant recovery in tourist arrivals.
As a result, the Tourism Business Council of South Africa (TBCSA) has remained optimistic about strengthening demand from overseas leisure travellers and improved operational efficiencies in the second half of this year.
The TBCSA said on Friday that a sizeable number of businesses in the accommodation and other tourism sector have forecast a strong domestic leisure demand, strong overseas business demand and a weak rand exchange rate as factors to impact positively on business performance from July to December 2023.
Speaking at the final day of the Tourism Leadership Conference in Sun City on Friday, TBCSA CEO Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa said feedback from the industry on future booking levels was optimistic as strong overseas arrivals as well as improved domestic demand were anticipated for the second half of 2023.
“This year, we remain on track to achieve our 2023 goal of 8.75 million foreign tourists’ arrivals. As of July 2023, the number of arrivals stood at 4.8 million,” Tshivhengwa said.
“This is a positive development for our sector that also suggests steady growth and improvement.”
The TBCSA, an umbrella body representing the voice of business in the hospitality, travel and tourism sector, said it was pleased with the strength of its partnership with the government, especially the departments of Tourism and Home Affairs, in advancing its collective tourism growth goals in the private and public sectors.
Tshivhengwa said Home Affairs Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi had reiterated his support to help the industry reach its goals of increasing tourism arrivals while ensuring that national security was not compromised.
He said that through this work they were on track to set up an efficient automated world-class e-visa, and advanced e-infrastructure, adding that work was also being done to grant more e-visa statuses, especially to travellers from South Africa’s source markets.
“I must emphasise that the relationship that we have with Home Affairs has improved. And it has improved in a way that we do get personal attention as an industry. I’m not saying that it is great, I'm saying it has improved,” Tshivhengwa said.
“There is still a long way to go in terms of fixing the technicalities of e-visas so that we can be able to accelerate the issuance of visas, especially in those countries that are using e-visa, or the countries that don’t have e-visa but they have to go to the mission to apply in person for the visa to come to South Africa.
“We do know that in China we have an issue. We do know that in India we have an issue. And those two markets are key in terms of achieving 15.7 million tourists by 2030.”
Motsoaledi, who spoke at the conference on Thursday, came down a bit hard on the tourism industry, saying he did not want the industry to exaggerate their problems.
Motsoaledi said not every country needed a visa to come to South Africa as Home Affairs had exempted a total of 133 countries across the world, including 36 in Africa that were exempted.
“So they cannot blame Home Affairs for any of the problems which tourism might be experiencing. Last year, this time we had 14 countries to which we had extended e-visas.
“We have now in one year added 20 more. There are now 34 countries. So it means the country is either visa-free, 133 of them, or it has got an e-visa, 34 of them. I don’t know who’s left.”
TBCSA chairperson Blacky Komani said the industry needed to drive home the fact that tourism was not a tertiary sector in the economy.
Komani said data showed that tourism would outperform the country’s economic growth by 1.8% over the next decade, a sign that the sector could not be ignored.
“I cannot emphasise this enough. The importance of our relationship with the public sector is the bedrock of our growth. It is therefore important that our sector is well-organised,” Komani said.
“We are not coming to the government to beg for solutions. Instead, we are here to ask the government to co-create these solutions with us.
“As a sector, we have the necessary skills and resources to work with you to solve the challenges we face as an industry,” Komani said.
BUSINESS REPORT