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The Portfolio Committee on Tourism today received a briefing from South African Tourism on its fourth quarter performance for 2018/19 financial year.

The Chairperson of the Tourism Committee, Mr Supra Mahumapelo, called for a combined approach from government to deal with this week’s crisis of Afrophobia in Johannesburg. The issue of femicide further exacerbates the current state of South Africa of not being a safe tourist destination.

Despite the Portfolio Committee on Tourism holding a consultative workshop with the Portfolio Committee on Police on Tourism Safety and Security last week, the current criminal activities and riots throughout the country defeat the committee’s endeavours to deal with negative perceptions of South Africa as a preferred tourist destination. This then impacts negatively on job creation, which has a follow-on effect on the economy. The committee reaffirms its position that it will do everything it can to rid South Africa of criminal elements. We also emphasise our position that not all South Africans or all our African brothers and sisters who are involved in such acts of criminality

South African Tourism reported a performance of 54%, with eight targets not achieved. The committee viewed this as underperformance and expressed its dissatisfaction. Going forward the entity needs to relook at its operations and improve its performance to meet its targets per quarter in the coming financial years.

The committee requested the entity to focus on domestic tourism, in particular on strengthening the “Shot Left” campaign to incorporate the marketing and promotion of villages, townships and small towns as tourist destinations, thereby creating new tourist destinations for both domestic and international tourists.
 
The Chairperson encouraged the Department of Tourism to engage with the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs to launch municipal indabas focussing on villages, townships and small towns. The committee also encouraged the Department of Tourism to collaborate with private-sector tourism establishments to ensure that these indabas are commenced with in this financial year as part of necessary build-up towards the national tourism indaba.
 
The Committee will be engaging the chairpersons of all provincial tourism committees to form a Legislative Tourism Oversight Forum (LETOFO) to streamline tourism oversight in all spheres of government and this will also be extended in the medium- to long-term to all the small villages and townships around the country.
 
Issued by the Parliamentary Communication Services on behalf of the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Tourism