In reviewing tourism policies, the government will address aspects such as special pricing for South Africans to encourage them to travel locally.
Prices for accommodation at places such as lodges, game reserves and other tourist attractions are said to be too expensive for locals, preventing them from exploring their country.
Speaking to reporters at the International Tourism Trade Fair in Berlin, Germany, deputy tourism minister Fish Mahlalela said talks are under way on pricing models for South Africans.
“There are views that are not official that say there should be a combination of international and local prices or, alternatively, [that] the low-demand season be opened for locals [at special prices].
“We are engaging with the private sector to try to convince them,” he said.
Mahlalela said that during the Covid-19 pandemic domestic travellers kept some establishments going.
“We want to see most holiday products move towards a two-tier system.”
According to SA Tourism figures, 9.2-million people made local holiday trips, 30.5% more than in 2019 before the Covid pandemic. Most trips were from Gauteng and Limpopo. KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng were the provinces visited most by South Africans.
SA Tourism COO Nomasonto Ndlovu said in an interview on Wednesday: “What we learnt during Covid was that the world won’t come to save us. We were on our own and had to rely heavily on the domestic market ... and South Africans responded positively to the call to travel in their own country. Many of them discovered new things.”
Mahlalela called on international investors to come to SA, especially to the rural areas with tourist attractions. Investment can be in the form of hotels, B&Bs and lodges, he said.
“People are already visiting those rural tourist attractions, but there is no accommodation so they do day visits. We want them to stay longer,” he said.
Mahlalela said the government offers incentives to encourage investment in SA from various development finance institutions. But that is not enough. “Hence we are appealing to investors with access to equity finance to partner our development finance institutions to support new products to keep up with increasing demand”.
In terms of tourism development, the focus is on underdeveloped areas with high tourism potential.
“We want to reverse the rural-to-urban migration and tourism has huge potential to help this. It can be done through investment.”
He said some private sector stakeholders indicated they will be willing to invest if some regulatory, financial and infrastructure barriers are addressed.
“We will try our best to resolve these issues.”
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