The National Department of Tourism (NDT), industry players and academia gathered in a seminar at the Inkosi King Albert Luthuli, ICC in Durban today, 9 May 2011 to deliberate on ways in which to stimulate and grow domestic tourism in South Africa.
In his opening remarks, Director-General of Tourism, Ambassador Kingsley Makhubela aptly stated, “We need to start to create a culture of travelling within South Africa. There is a need to get some innovative thinking to develop a comprehensive strategy that deals with domestic tourism,” he added.
The seminar themed, “Growing and Stimulating Tourism in South Africa,” formed part of the Indaba 2011 programme. The seminar was convened to provide an opportunity for industry stakeholders to take part in a collective analysis of South Africa’s strengths, weaknesses and opportunities with regard to the development of a domestic tourism sector.
The need to stimulate and grow domestic tourism is captured in the National Tourism Sector Strategy (NTSS) which was launched in March this year. This ambitious plan to grow tourism - and approved by Cabinet - will see South Africa becoming a top 20 destination in the world by 2020. The NDT and its partners aim to increase the number of domestic trips from 30.9 million to 54 million by 2020.
The NTSS further states that, in South Africa, many South Africans have not had the opportunity to take a holiday and to travel within their own country, partly because of the socio-economic imbalances within our society. Currently, the dominant purpose for travel among black South Africans is visiting friends and relatives, where spending may be lower and often not well accounted for or recorded compared to domestic holiday travel.
As a consequence, the NTSS advocates for the development of the Domestic Tourism Strategy, whose objective is to promote local travel, motivate for the provision of affordable tourism products and packages that encourage low to medium income earners to take more holidays.
This means that, this strategy will seek to broaden the mass-based domestic travel campaign that targets all, regardless of gender, age or race.This requires a partnership approach between all stakeholders towards product development, marketing and addressing access barriers. The seminar marks the start of the process towards the development of a comprehensive Domestic Tourism Strategy.
Enquiries:
Mpumi Simelane
Tel: 012 310 3631
Cell: 082 354 1510
E-mail: msimelane@tourism.gov.za
