Economic Affairs, N Masithela, at the Qwantani Tourism Launch, Qwantani Resort,
Harrismith
1 September 2006
Program Director
Colleagues from the Executive Council
Colleagues from the Provincial Legislature
Officials from Provincial Departments
Members of media
Honourable guests
Ladies and gentlemen
It gladdens my heart to address you today at the landmark event surrounded
by breath taking landscape. I hope programme director, I would be able to talk
within the timeframe given to me; I hope I would not go overboard to talk about
the beautiful scenery that surrounds us.
We are celebrating this year's tourism month under the theme: Tourism
Enriches, a relevant theme that calls upon us to translate our strategies into
pragmatic programmes of action from which our communities must benefit.
The first action that we took as government was to speed up the process of
establishment of the Free State Tourism Authority of which one of its main
objectives will to promote and market the province. In doing they will have to
foster awareness amongst our communities on importance of tourism and its
social, cultural and economic values.
Throughout the month the Tourism Authority will engage communities of the
province on how tourism could enrich them socially, culturally and
economically. Over this weekend we will make sure that we expose you to unique
and diverse cultures found in the province and showcase the tourism experience
of our beautiful province.
The aim is to expose you to this attraction with the hope that as members of
the media you will be able to share your experiences with the rest of the
country. The impact of your work cannot be under-estimated, hence as the Free
State Government we took upon us to invite you to this part of the country to
spend a weekend with us to expose you to all these attractions.
Programme director, tourism has been identified as one of the immediate
priority sectors for economic growth in the Accelerated and Shared Growth
Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA) and the Provincial Growth and Development
Strategy (PGDS).
For us as the province to achieve 6% economic growth per annum we have to
place particular attention to the tourism sector. And the fortunate part of it
is that all our five district municipalities have identified tourism as the key
priority sector for their economic growth. This is a positive signal that as a
province we are set for a common goal.
This corporative governance will also extend to all other spheres of
government working together with other national public entities to ensure that
we coherently work towards one objective.
The Free State Tourism Authority will continue to work with the South
African Tourism to piggy-back on their initiatives to ensure it claim its share
of the millions of international market that visit the country.
For us to have coherent messages in promoting the country we will leave the
South African Tourism to open doors for us in the international arena whilst
our focus will be on attracting tourism from the continent and within the
province. In this way we will be channelling our resource to the primary
market, which is currently our niche market.
Programme director, in line with our theme as the province we have scheduled
a number of activities that will open up free communication channels between
government and our public. These interactions are aimed at promoting awareness
within our communities on the value of tourism to their lives.
A week ago we launched the first phase of tourism safety as part of our
endeavour to create a safe environment for our tourists to visit the province.
The second and third phase will unfold during September and December 2006
respectively.
Yesterday to mark the end of the women's month we held a women's prayer
rally of the Maloti-a-Phofung Local Municipality where women were exposed to
opportunities found in the tourism sector and where they could access financial
and non-financial support.
This went well and we hope to host such interaction with all women
formations around the province.
As part of our celebration and awareness campaigns we will host Tourism
Lekgotla with all tourism stakeholders in the province to map a way for all
logistics that will see more frequent interaction between government and
private sector as well as to discuss how the province could maximally leverage
on opportunities that the 2010 Soccer World Cup brings to the country.
More visits with different stakeholders and our partners in business are
scheduled this month to showcase experience that this province has to
offer.
We will also launch the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) Tourism Charter
with the national Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism to begin the
process of intensifying our efforts to transform the tourism industry.
Emphasis in all our public participation will be on how we begin to bring
historically disadvantaged individuals (HDIs) to take part in this industry so
that they could have a meaningful contribution to the country's economy.
Although we are faced with the daunting challenge of transforming this industry
as the province we are working hard to see representatively of the HDIs.
This is the commitment we will strive for as our theme for this financial
year says: âbroadening economic participation for shared growthâ.
Programme director, in conclusion let me welcome our guests to the splendour
and beautiful scenery of the Free State and hope that they will begin to
experience the Basotho culture and their traditional way of living.
Explore, experience and enjoy.
I thank you!
Issued by: Department of Tourism, Environmental and Economic Affairs, Free
State Provincial Government
1 September 2006
