https://www.polity.org.za
Deepening Democracy through Access to Information
Home / News / South African News RSS ← Back
Africa|Aviation|Tourism
Africa|Aviation|Tourism
africa|aviation|tourism
Close

Email this article

separate emails by commas, maximum limit of 4 addresses

Sponsored by

Close

Article Enquiry

SA Tourism says Spurs deal not signed but conditionally approved

Close

Embed Video

1

SA Tourism says Spurs deal not signed but conditionally approved

SA Tourism acting CEO Themba Khumalo
SA Tourism acting CEO Themba Khumalo

2nd February 2023

By: Sane Dhlamini
Creamer Media Senior Contributing Editor and Researcher

ARTICLE ENQUIRY      SAVE THIS ARTICLE      EMAIL THIS ARTICLE

Font size: -+

SA Tourism acting CEO Themba Khumalo stressed on Thursday that while the controversial Tottenham Hotspurs deal has not been signed, it has been conditionally approved by the SA Tourism Board.

Khumalo was addressing the media following an outcry around the almost R1-billion sponsorship, which aims to attract more tourists to South Africa.

Advertisement

Khumalo stressed that the travel industry was one of the biggest economic drivers in the country and would continue to be the powerhouse of driving economic recovery.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) believes that the plan is “another glitz and glamour ploy” by Tourism Minister Lindiwe Sisulu to leave a mark in tourism before her potential redeployment to another department in a soon-to-be announced Cabinet reshuffle.

Advertisement

Khumalo pointed out that the mandate of SA Tourism was to market South Africa both domestically and internationally.

SA Tourism believes that the Spurs deal will reach 616-million people who will watch the game live and yield billions for the country.

Khumalo said the deal would also give South Africa access to key policy makers such as the members of the UK Parliament and CEOs of London-listed companies.

“When you start to unpack the deal, you start to see that there is a lot of other underlying benefits in terms of how we will be able to drive the return on investment for this deal and how we drive advocacy back channelling in order for us to get this done,” he explained.

He added that the deal would also boost the aviation industry.

Despite the document being leaked to the media, Khumalo stressed that he could not discuss further details of the figures that had been made public.

Explaining where SA Tourism is in terms of the deal, he said that his organisation had had to halt discussions around the deal for now while addressing the issue of leaked documents.

When asked why SA Tourism chose to sponsor Tottenham Hotspur, Khumalo said that all other top teams already have tourism partners.

“This was the only team in the top performing tier that did not have a tourism destination partner,” he confirmed.

 

EMAIL THIS ARTICLE      SAVE THIS ARTICLE ARTICLE ENQUIRY

To subscribe email subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za or click here
To advertise email advertising@creamermedia.co.za or click here

Comment Guidelines

About

Polity.org.za is a product of Creamer Media.
www.creamermedia.co.za

Other Creamer Media Products include:
Engineering News
Mining Weekly
Research Channel Africa

Read more

Subscriptions

We offer a variety of subscriptions to our Magazine, Website, PDF Reports and our photo library.

Subscriptions are available via the Creamer Media Store.

View store

Advertise

Advertising on Polity.org.za is an effective way to build and consolidate a company's profile among clients and prospective clients. Email advertising@creamermedia.co.za

View options
Free daily email newsletter Register Now