South African Tourism (SAT) has moved to defend the R1 billion controversial deal to sponsor London based Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, saying it was an attempt to persuade more international travellers to the country.
The proposed move drew outrage from many quarters who questioned the need for the huge investment outside the country.
After the Covid-19 pandemic, the tourism sector has been trying to claw back its market share and increase its contribution to South Africa's Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Acting CEO of SAT, Themba Khumalo told a media conference on Thursday that talks on the deal with the football club were only motivated by efforts to yield a high impact, and bring back international tourists to the country.
"The envisaged deal has nothing to do with football, but with accessing the aggregated viewers of the British Premier League and persuading them to come spend Euros, British Pounds, US dollars and other foreign currency here".
However, talks had now been put on ice after the leak of the deal to the media and “nothing had been signed”, he added.
The R1 billion deal was approved by SAT Board on condition that engagements were held with all relevant stakeholders including the National Treasury.
"In 2022 we agreed as a sector that we would look at mega events in South Africa and outside and one of the criteria was a global reach in terms of audiences.
"The Board went to the UK to do due diligence and we were all persuaded that the deal was a good opportunity".
In defending the proposed R1 billion spend, Khumalo said SAT had been spending money in overseas marketing initiatives through "small campaigns" including media, over the past 20 years.
"We have been spending money in foreign soil. This deal is not a new thing. But what we have now done is to aggregate the small projects into a high impact initiative that will produce the yield that we want."
According to Khumalo SAT had a target to reach 21 million international arrivals by 2030 set by President Cyril Ramaphosa.
"If we are to reach the target we have to grow the sector by 18 % year on year. Our tourism recovery rate after Covid-19 is 13 % lower than the average global rate."
Another African country, Rwanda also went into a partnership with Arsenal Football Club, a deal which Khumalo described as different from SAT's in terms of its value and reach.
"If you look at the top performing British teams they all have destination partners. There's underlying benefits in ours. It will lead to access to influential policy makers in the UK, and CEOs of top companies. South Africa's High Commissioner there will also be able to leverage on this", added Khumalo.
He also pointed out that the deal could result in an increased frequency of direct flights in some markets which had seen a drop recently.
SAT Acting Chief Strategy Officer, Robert Manson also told the media that although tourist arrivals had slightly increased to 5.7 million from the 2021 figure of 2.3 million, the tourism recovery rate needed to be accelerated.
Of the 5.7 million travellers, over 283 000 visitors came from the UK while 262 000 were from the United States, he added.
"The UK direct spend was just over R6 billion while the US spend was R8,3 billion".
Khumalo added that should the deal proceed even at 1 % of the 661 million football fans who watched live Tottenham Spurs matches, it would convert to an additional six million arrivals and billions of rands worth of spend.
He denied that SAT had also negotiated a deal with Chelsea Football Club.
"That has not been formally presented to us. However, in the middle of Covid-19 we were presented with another deal and it was not the right time to consider it as an aggregator of audiences".
He warned that action would be taken against the person who leaked "confidential" documents related to the Spurs deal.