Tourism marketing body, South African Tourism, is seeking closer collaboration with the industry, not only to tackle current obstacles to growth but to create a platform where industry issues can be heard and addressed.
This was the key message from CEO of SA Tourism, Sisa Ntshona, during the Tourism Update webinar held at Now Media’s offices yesterday and sponsored by South African Tourism.
“We are looking for viewpoints, advice and even criticism, but ask that those are backed by suggested solutions,” he said, highlighting that tourism was interconnected to so many other industries and could not operate in isolation.
“Policies created by other government bodies – at national, provincial and local level – need to take into account the impact they have on what President Cyril Ramaphosa has identified as the number-two growth priority in the country – tourism.”
Ntshona welcomed the fact that the Minister of Tourism, Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane, was chairperson of Parliament’s Economic Cluster, as this meant she could directly influence policy decisions affecting the tourism sector.
Readers, along with those who were listening to the live webinar, were encouraged to send through their questions, concerns and comments to Ntshona and he addressed as many as he could during the time allowed.
Some of the issues addressed included the “dysfunctional” National Public Transport Regulator (NPTR), e-Visas, niche target markets, increased intra-African tourism and changing South African Tourism’s marketing strategy and branding.
Tourism Update will work with Ntshona and his team to answer all the questions he did not get to during the session and these will be published as stories over the next few months.
Click HERE to listen to the full one-hour-long webinar.
