Fish Mahlalela, minister of Tourism, addressing delegates during the first day of the Tourism Investment Forum Africa conference in Cape Town. | Bongani Mbatha Independent Newspapers
Tourism Deputy Minister Fish Mahlalela has vowed to combat crime in his sector to ensure that tourism in the country flourishes.
Mahlalela was addressing the opening of the second edition of the Tourism Investment Forum Africa (Tifa) conference currently taking place at the Cape Town International Convention Centre on Wednesday.
In collaboration with World Travel Market Africa (WTM) and Brand South Africa, Tifa aims to foster business connections and engagement among stakeholders and decision-makers within the trade and investment aspects of the tourism sector.
According to the organisers of the conference that ends on Friday, the forum is a pan-African platform that aims to facilitate investment into the tourism sector, especially intra-Africa investment.
Speaking to The Star on the sidelines of the conference, Mahlalela conceded that crime was a glaring challenge to tourism investment in the country but said that the government had developed a tourism strategy to combat crime.
“When tourists decide to choose a destination to tour, there is one question they ask themselves… and if they don’t get a positive answer from it then they desist from. One of them is safety.
“If tourists come to a conclusion that it’s not safe to visit the country, then they change their minds and the sector loses,” Mahlalela said.
He added that the government had developed a tourism safety strategy, creating a tourism safety forum which is a combination of government, civil society and the private sector together with the SAPS to make sure that they create a safer environment for tourists.
“We need to make tourists feel safer coming to the country… so we have developed tourism safety monitors which we have deployed in our various tourism attractions throughout the nine provinces including SA National Parks.”
He said they were also looking to invest in infrastructure to meet the demands for tourism in the country.
The deputy minister further said the government was partnering with some organisations of which Tifa was one of them to improve on tourism.
“We are participating in all the international trade shows, taking all our key SMEs exposing them into the international market.
“Last February, we had Meetings Africa which was part of a strategy to draw as many businesses into South Africa as possible.
“We will be having a Travel Indaba in Durban which is an effort to make sure that we expose businesses of South Africa to the international world. This helps assist many local businesses to be able to join and be party to selling their products to the international market,” Mahlalela said.
He said tourism investment was growing from the destruction Covid-19 had caused to the local tourism economy.
“You might know there have been a lot of accommodation facilities that have been suffering since Covid… so we chose the private sector, not only South African, but also internationally to have confidence in what South Africa is able to offer.”
He said that South Africa needed to improve access coming into the country.
“We have currently finalised the air lifting strategy so that we make sure it's easy for flights to come into South Africa but more importantly to make sure that there is some element of affordability because if it's not affordable it won't be easy for people to come to South Africa.”
The Star
mashudu.sadike@inl.co.za