Presenting South Africa to the world as a country that welcomes tourists would be “a huge driver of jobs and growth,” says Tim Harris, interim chair of the government agency South African Tourism.
“That's about lobbying for the tourism industry's prominence in South Africa's priorities. It's about convincing the public sector that tourism should be a priority sector and will be a huge creator of very jobs-rich growth across income and skills levels.”
He cites Australia, where tourism contributes 8.1% of GDP, and Thailand where it is 13.3% of GDP, as examples of “where we need to be”. Tourism in South Africa contributes 6.8%. Getting it up to 8.4% by 2030 is “entirely possible”.
"When we have this kind of growth coming through, we’ll see hundreds of thousands of new jobs created for the country. This is why we believe tourism should be prioritised as a sector by government."
He sees this beginning to happen under the leadership of Patricia de Lille, who became the minister of tourism in March. She promptly dissolved the South African Tourism board after a secretive and unlawful R1bn partnership deal with UK premier league football club Tottenham Hotspur was exposed, and brought in Harris, a former DA MP who had turned Wesgro — the Western Cape tourism, trade investment promotion agency — into a potent vehicle for growth.
“Since De Lille came in, she has raised the priority of tourism on the national agenda. She's reset the relationship that wasn't strong between government and the tourism sector,” he says.
“Unless you have proper collaboration between the two, tourism in this country is not going to make the strides it needs to.”
Being named recently by UK Telegraph readers as the best country and Cape Town the best city in the world to visit has contributed to a 35% increase in tourists from the UK this year.
He says South African Tourism surveys in its 24 major markets show “there is huge demand from people wanting to experience South Africa's incredible scenery, vibrant culture and great value for money”.
South African Tourism is about converting that demand into travellers, and the numbers suggest that “our message is starting to land in key markets”, particularly big-spending markets such as North America, which is up 50% from 2022.
Being named recently by readers of The Telegraph in the UK as the best country in the world to visit has contributed to a 35% increase in British visitors to South Africa this year. In the same poll, Cape Town was picked as the best city to visit.
“The numbers from all our major markets are increasing dramatically,” says Harris. “This doesn't mean there aren't challenges. We've definitely got problems. We're out there marketing the country, but obviously we're doing it in the face of perceived and real constraints like visas and security. Obviously, we depend on a strong safety and security response from government to market the country as a destination.”
Crime statistics show this response is not happening. Is it time for South African Tourism to be more proactive?
“Our job is to convert a desire to travel into high-spending travellers. And we're doing that hand-in-hand, increasingly, with the private sector. This is a new thing in South Africa where there has not been trust between the tourism sector and South African Tourism. We're rebuilding that.”
The agency has regular marketing workshops with tourism industry leaders, working out how they can align their message around the world so that the private sector-led tourism industry and South African Tourism speak with one voice.
“That's the role South African Tourism is going to be playing. More effective marketing of the country as a destination, increasingly hand-in-hand with the industry.”
He cites the campaign launched by the Tourism Business Council, using comedian Trevor Noah, as a good example of private sector capital helping to boost marketing in sync with the branding and marketing South African Tourism is doing in its hubs around the world.
“We want to become a best-practice example globally of industry collaboration with government in marketing a country,” he says.
Surely, the most collaborative marketing exercise in the world is no match for South Africa's crime statistics, dangerous roads and dysfunctional towns?
“South Africans realise there are a lot of things that aren't going in the right direction in the country, but the tourism product remains strong. And if we can convert that into high-spending tourists, you'll see the industry emerge not only as a bigger contributor to GDP growth but a huge job creator for the country that can be turned on really quickly.”
The Durban chamber of commerce doubts there'll be high-spending tourists there given dangerously high levels of E. coli along the KwaZulu-Natal coast.
Harris concedes that's “certainly a real issue”, but points to the “extraordinary” investment by Club Med in a resort 50km north of Durban.
“This shows the momentum is going in the right direction, although obviously there's an obligation on government to make sure water issues and security issues are resolved.”
The momentum may or may not be moving in the right direction but the reality is that a country such as Australia, with far less to offer than South Africa, is thrashing it in the tourist stakes. What is Australia getting right that South Africa is not?
Australia has been much more consistent in its “joined-up messaging” between the government and business, he says.
“We, quite frankly, haven't had that. That's why I'm emphasising that as part of our future growth story, because that is one lesson we absolutely can learn from them.
“The other lesson is that when you're a long-haul destination, as we both are, you're entirely dependent on air connectivity. The difficulties SAA has faced over the last decade have not helped, and the commitment from other carriers alongside SAA has not always been there in the way it has for Australia. They've maintained connectivity to a market like China while we have not.”
Before Covid, Australia was attracting 1.2-million tourists annually from China, while South Africa was bringing in 95,000.
“Rebuilding our air network is one of the single most impactful ways of growing our tourism numbers and the jobs linked to them,” Harris says. “That's been a really big lesson for us. The air route network Australia has managed to maintain is now one that we're building, and I think that is going to help us emulate some of their impressive growth in tourist numbers.”
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