The Regional Tourism Organisation of Southern Africa hopes its process of restructuring and transformation will be complete by August.
According to media reports, the tourism promotion organisation, which is a Southern African Development Community institution, may soon be integrated into the SADC secretariat as a full directorate.
Simba Mandinyenya, Acting Executive Director of Retosa in Johannesburg, told Tourism Update that stakeholders expect the exercise will be completed, and a final report presented to the SADC Council, in early August.
The decision to transform the organisation had been taken by the SADC Ministers responsible for tourism in March 2012, said Mandinyenya: “The Ministers are basing their decisions on the needs of the member states, the new continental and global dispensation,” he said. The end goal was a more effective regional tourism development vehicle.
The task of chairing the transformation and producing a draft structure has been given to Zambia, one of 15 members of Retosa. Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, South Africa and Seychelles all form part of an ad hoc restructuring committee. South Africa and Mozambique are the working group on administration, finance and legal issues with Zimbabwe and Seychelles reviewing policy and programmes.
The new Retosa format may result in renewed vigour for the organisation which has experienced internal discord. In December last year, Zimbabwean newspaper The Herald, carried a report that Retosa was on the “brink of collapse as some member states sharply disagree with the big brother mentality of South Africa in particular”. A heated meeting in Maputo in November had revealed that some members were in favour of disbanding the organisation, while others fought for its continuation, and the remainder adopted a middle-of-the-road position.
