Since launching the We Do Tourism initiative at Indaba, South African Tourism has embarked on a series of roadshows throughout the country to engage with provincial tourism authorities and the trade.
This, as well as other developments relating to the We Do Tourism campaign, was under the spotlight in a webinar hosted by Tourism Update and SA Tourism on July 26.
SA Tourism CEO, Sisa Ntshona, explained that, so far, the roadshows had travelled to seven of the nine provinces, with just the Northern Cape and Limpopo remaining. “We embarked on the roadshows to meet with the provincial tourism authorities to look for areas of alignment, consistency and continuity,” he said.
This forms part of SA Tourism’s 5-in-5 strategy, which aims to attract a further five million arrivals within the next five years. Ntshona said the engagement with the provinces focused on working out how the country was going to manage all the extra tourists coming into the country in terms of bed and experiences, as well as devising strategies on how to get them to stay longer. “This interaction with the provincial tourism authorities culminated in the signing of performance agreements so that we can start to align our resources and activities,” he said.
The second part of the roadshow involves interacting with the industry so that SA Tourism can better understand the challenges and opportunities it will face in implementing its 5-in-5 strategy. “We Do Tourism is about saying to South Africa, ‘Let’s all get involved in this growing sector, which is good for GDP growth, labour creation and the economy in general’,” said Ntshona.
Chief Marketing Officer of SA Tourism, Margie Whitehouse, explained that We Do Tourism was not a campaign but a movement driven by SA Tourism but owned by South Africans who realised that “tourism is the shining beacon of hope in our economy”.
To listen to the full webinar, click here.
We Do Tourism officially launches at the end of September but in the interim, SA Tourism hopes to get ideas and solutions from the trade. To make suggestions, please add your comments below, which will be shared with South African Tourism.
