Issued by: Finance and Economic Affairs
The Gauteng Tourism Bill has two essential purposes:
It is widely accepted that there is great potential for tourism in South Africa: the recent Presidential Job Summit also highlighted this point. Provided it is well managed, tourism has the potential to create jobs, increase incomes and promote economic development for some time to come.
The Bill is designed to ensure that there is a sustainable source of funding for tourism marketing and development. It is intended to address empowerment issues and market imperfections such as the racial balance in the industry. It is intended to ensure that Gauteng offers tourists more diverse and higher quality tourist products.
The Bill will establish a Gauteng Tourism Authority. This statutory body will replace the existing Gauteng Tourism Agency, and will have a broader regulatory and promotion role in the industry than is possible for a Section 21 company. The Bill also provides for the sustainable financing of tourism marketing and development by means of a levy imposed upon tourists and collected by the industry. At least 80% of the levies collected in this manner will be allocated to tourism.
The Bill also provides that at least one third of the levies collected will be assigned to a Tourism Development Fund, to be used to promote tourism activities to the benefit of disadvantaged communities. This is an essential feature of the Bill that is not matched by any of the other tourism funding proposals, which all focus upon marketing only.
Finally, the Bill provides for compulsory registration of industry participants, and voluntary accreditation and grading. These are measures designed to ensure that accurate information on the industry can be collected and used in marketing. They also provide the means to ensure that we provide high quality tourist services that will encourage tourists to return for more.
The Bill originates from a White Paper process that we went through in 1996, with many workshops and consultations. Every part of the tourism industry took part in that process, which resulted in our Gauteng Tourism White Paper. Consultation with the private sector has also taken place, both before and after the public hearings. The public hearings were a most interesting and important part of the consultation on the Bill. By listening carefully to the submissions, it was possible to disentangle the substantive difficulties from the hype and to improve the Bill accordingly.
The industry initiative is intended to fund marketing only and nothing else, whereas we are intent on also addressing the issues of infrastructure, empowerment and development. Secondly, the industry's initiative is a once-off, voluntary scheme, whereas we are determined to ensure sustainable funding for years into the future. Voluntary schemes are inequitable, unpredictable and unreliable, since they depend upon the goodwill of the contributor.
Tourism is widely recognised to be a key sector for the country, and one that has considerable potential for creating jobs and promoting economic growth and development. The legislation will provide a strong foundation from which to ensure that tourism develops and transform to the benefit of all our people. The adoption of legislation in Gauteng is likely to trigger the development of missing national framework, to benefit of South Africa as a whole.
For more information contact Phetole at (011) 355-8481 - 082 564 7787.