Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa, CEO of the Tourism Business Council of SA (TBCSA), says recent displays of xenophobia by politicians in the name of securing jobs for South Africans actually has the opposite effect.
“Our most important task as a country and an industry is to stimulate demand for tourism, for this is what will create jobs for South Africans,” he says. “Not going around intimidating people because they're foreigners.”
All this does is strengthen perceptions of SA as a lawless and unstable country.
“When we do marketing overseas we see how much things like this, and last year's riots, encourage people's perceptions of the country as a place where there is no rule of law.”
This is hugely damaging for a country for which tourism should be one of the biggest job creators.
“We cannot have a thriving tourism industry without the rule of law. Nobody wants to travel to or in a country that is at war, or where there is ongoing civil unrest. Nothing does more to damage the brand of the country. People want to know they will be going to a safe and stable country and will return back home. That is the premise of travel in the first place.”
Tshivhengwa says TBCSA does what it can to ensure that people employed in the industry from outside the country comply with the labour laws.
If employers are hiring people who are not properly documented then it is for the department of employment & labour to do the job it is statutorily empowered and required to do.
“What is not useful is for people to take it on themselves to intimidate people who should be protected by the laws of the country. That is not something that should happen.”
What we cannot do is take the laws that are there and change them arbitrarily because we don't like them
— Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa, CEO of the TBCSA
As for those targeting foreigners who are legally in the country and legally employed because they think they're doing jobs South Africans could be doing, if they want the laws to be changed then they must go about it in the proper way.
“What we cannot do is take the laws that are there and change them arbitrarily because we don't like them, or because we take issue with the ratio of foreign nationals working in an establishment versus South Africans.”
People have no right to take it upon themselves to inspect or check on establishments. “We shouldn't be having all these things that disturb the momentum that we in the tourism industry are trying to create.”
Trade partners are asking what is going on in the country, and whether it is safe for people to come here.
Tshivhengwa says it is fortunate for the tourism industry that the riots happened at a time when the main focus of the world was on Covid, otherwise the anarchy would have had far worse repercussions for SA's image.
“But these kinds of things, riots and xenophobia, don't assist us in convincing countries to send their citizens to SA. Especially when we're also trying to target the African market.”
Largely as a result of increasing incidents of xenophobia, wealthy travellers from East Africa, Nigeria and other West African nations are changing their minds about visiting SA to shop at its high-end stores.
“They're saying, ‘Let's go to Dubai, London, Paris, let's not even think of Johannesburg or Cape Town or Durban,’" says Tshivhengwa.
“This is the kind of feedback we're getting from our trade partners. People tend to get scared and say, 'Well, you guys don't seem to like us, so why should we come to your country?' And they don't.”
The council gets similar feedback from the UK, Germany and the US. “Safety and security is very important to these countries. I can't stress that enough.”
If law and order issues were dealt with effectively, “in a way that will make the international community see us as a much safer destination than what we are now”, the country could “easily” attract more tourists from anywhere in the world, he says.
“If you ask Chinese tourists what is their first concern, safety and security is No 1. It is the biggest barrier to tourism here by far.”
Given SA's huge competitive advantage over other countries in terms of what it has to offer, tourism should be contributing at least 13% to GDP by 2030, from 8.6% pre-Covid, he says.
They're saying, ‘Let's go to Dubai, London, Paris, let's not even think of Johannesburg or Cape Town or Durban’
In Thailand, tourism contributed around 21% to GDP pre-Covid, and SA could and should be in the same league.
If SA could allay the security fears of target markets, roll out long-promised e-visas and fix roads and municipalities, the number of tourists coming to the country could double by 2030, with most of those coming from China and India.
Australia, with far less to offer than SA, attracted 1.2-million tourists annually from China pre-Covid, while SA was only bringing in 95,000. “China is a market of huge potential for us, but we still haven't implemented e-visas there.”
The local tourism industry should be looking, in the short term, to create 2-million jobs, direct and indirect, in addition to the 1.5-million it had before the pandemic, he says. “SA desperately needs tourism as a catalyst for economic growth.”
Tshivhengwa likes to think the government is getting the message, but won't be drawn on President Cyril Ramaphosa's use of the tourism portfolio as a dumping ground for underperforming cabinet ministers such as Lindiwe Sisulu.
“That's a political matter. But of course we want a minister who makes sure there is a whole-of-state approach when it comes to tourism, who deals with the issues that are an impediment to tourism
“The biggest challenges that affect us are not sitting in the tourism portfolio. They're sitting in the departments of safety and security, home affairs, transport and local government. We need to work with the minister to make sure these things are unlocked.”
This, he says, seems to be easier said than done. “We've been talking about these things for quite a number of years. It's been strategy after strategy. Where's the action?”
