The Tourism Busines Council of South Africa (TBCSA) has reported that its Tourism and Marketing Levy (TOMSA) collected from industry players has reached record levels and has revealed that a total of approximately R50m has been handed over to SA Tourism (SAT) to date this year to aid with marketing the destination.
In its first year of operation, TOMSA handed over R11,4m to SAT and between 1999 and 2009, a cumulative amount of R103m was handed over to the destination marketing organisation.
The bulk of the amount is reportedly from hotels and car rental agencies that collect the levy says CEO of TBCSA, Mmatšatši Marobe. She furthers that this levy helps increase industry growth which in turn means more jobs and entrepreneurs in the industry.
She does however state that one of the important next steps for the organisation is to increase the number levy collectors in South Africa that actively hand over collected funds to TOMSA. Currently the organisation has only a mere 650 levy collectors which Marobe says is inferior in comparison to the 10 000 tourism suppliers listed on the national tourism database.
Chairman of the TBCSA board, Tommy Edmond, says that the association plans to adopt a strategy of first encouraging the biggest players in the industry to start collecting the levy and then moving down to smaller players over time.
He furthered that large tour operators will also be urged to encourage their suppliers to join as TOMSA levy collectors.
TBCSA is also to launch an awareness campaign aimed at improving the understanding of TOMSA within the industry before the end of the year.
