SA Tourism targets China, India to lift growth
Budget gets extra R15m to advertise in the rest of Africa
ALTHOUGH South Africa is not neglecting its traditional European source markets for tourism, it is encouraging growth from new markets in China and India.
Still, Africa’s rising contribution was much higher than that from the rest of the world and benefited the whole of the economy, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, the Minister of Tourism, told MPS yesterday.
He told the National Assembly’s tourism committee that increasing prosperity in some African countries meant that travel from there was changing from business and buying trips to “a true tourism market”.
As a result an extra R15 million was being added to SA Tourism’s budget for the 2012/13 year for marketing in Africa.
Increasing air travel would play an important part in this. South Africa’s present airlift strategy was due to expire in December and Van Schalkwyk’s department was in discussions with the Department of Transport about the formulation of a new strategy.
He said domestic tourism, which not only enabled the industry to hedge against global insecurity but also improved the local quality of life, was also being encouraged.
Thulani Nzima, SA Tourism’s new chief executive, said it was targeting 15 million foreign tourists by 2020, by which time it also aimed to grow domestic tourism from 14.6 million in 2009 to 18 million by 2020, and tourism’s contribution to the gross domestic product from an estimated R189.4 billion in 2009 to R499bn by 2020.
He stressed that the R15m allocated for attracting tourism from the rest of Africa was ring-fenced for that purpose. South Africa and the rest of Africa were more accessible to each other than other parts of the world and it was essential for South Africa to be the dominant tourism market on the continent.
Airlines played an important part in this because of their ability to bring highincome people to this country. People from countries such as Nigeria and Kenya should be encouraged to come and do their shopping for luxury clothing and other high value items here rather than in Europe.
Presenting SA Tourism’s strategic plan for the next five years, Nzima said that because of budget constraints the body was concentrating mainly on spending in the most rewarding markets, but these were reviewed regularly because of rapid changes.
Core markets attracting 60 percent of expenditure and the most effort were Angola, Botswana, Kenya and Nigeria in the continental market; and the US, Australia, India, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK overseas.
Investment markets, on which 20 percent of the budget was spent in the hope of improved returns in the future, were the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Brazil, Canada, China including Hong Kong, Japan, Belgium, Italy and Sweden.
Tactical markets offering particular opportunities were New Zealand, Ireland, Lesotho and Swaziland.