THRIVE: 25 O p i n i o n communities who must demonstrably benefit from tourism. This is critical when luxury tourism happens adjacent to poor communities as is frequently the case in rural Africa, and pertains in cities and towns where over-tourism has seen communities reject influxes of tourists. Luckily we are not experiencing overtourism, but we need to make sure our communities feel involved and benefit from tourism. Tomeet its growth potential, the industry also needs a supportive and enabling environment. Sadly this is lacking. We do not have a fully-automated e-Visa, nor a supportive visa regime. We face huge mountains of red tape, and often the administrative processes are extremely inefficient or dysfunctional. Oneof thebiggestdeterrents totravel for South Africans within our country and for foreigners, is concerns over safety due to high crime levels, unrest and protests. As a county we need to address crime, and within this we need to maximise safety for tourists, ensure incidents of crime against tourists are properly addressed and better manage perceptions. If we can improve our safety image we can significantly grow our tourism industry. We need to drive air access on a national level; we need to market and be ready to welcome tourists from newer markets – India, China and much of Africa; we need incentives to spur investment in appropriate product and areas, and we need to up our destination marketing game. How can we do this? Global best practice clearly indicates two imperatives: ◼ ◼ we need a whole of government approach - tourism is impacted by actions in many government departments and we need tourism’s requirements to be seen as a priority across government ◼ ◼ tourism is private sector driven and we need a functioning partnership between public and private sectors, which addresses policy and strategy development and implementation, with a specific emphasis on destination marketing It’s a competitive tourism world and we have some fantastic destination USPs, but we also need a competitive enabling environment; we need to be top class across all elements of the tourism value chain to truly succeed in growing this industry to reach its potential. To meet its growth potential, the industry also needs a supportive and enabling environment. Sadly this is lacking. Gillian Saunders is an Independent Consultant and a member of the STH Board. image source: pexels.com
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