In a bid to boost domestic tourism, South African Tourism has partnered with the private sector to offer accommodation discounts across the country this summer season.
Discounts will be made available by at least 440 establishments for the next three months, until January 12 next year.
Speaking at the launch of her department's 2024 summer campaign in Bloemfontein on Tuesday, tourism minister Patricia de Lille said the discounts were meant to make travel more affordable to South Africans grappling with the high cost of living.
“Through our various travel offers and campaigns executed in our various markets, as well as here at home, we want to show that travel to and within South Africa is accessible and affordable,” she said.
De Lille said the campaign was also aimed at giving exposure to provinces such as the Free State, which is among those least visited by tourists.
According to Stats SA’s Domestic Tourism Survey, the Free State, Northern Cape and Mpumalanga received the least number of tourists in 2022, with people mainly travelling to the Free State to visit friends and family.
“We’ve been moving our events to different provinces, focusing on lesser-visited provinces to expose the hidden gems and ensure the economic impact of tourism is felt across the country,” De Lille said.
According to the World Travel and Tourism Council, tourism’s direct and indirect contribution to South Africa’s GDP was 8.2% in 2023. It is estimated to rise to 8.8% by the end of 2024 and to reach 10.4% by 2030.
“South Africa welcomed more than 5.8-million tourists in the first eight months of 2024, marking a 7% increase when compared to the same period in 2023, while 21.5-million trips were taken by South Africans to explore the country between January and July 2024,” De Lille said.
She said it was important to promote domestic tourism as it was the bedrock of the sector. In 2023, more than 10-million domestic tourists spent R38bn between October and January during their travels.
“We are on a mission to attract holiday travellers into the province, who will come to the Free State for reasons other than visiting friends and family,” said Free State premier Maqueen Letsoha-Mathae. “We want to position ourselves as a province to go to, not to go through.”
She said the province was ready to welcome leisure travellers and attract business travellers, especially in mining and agriculture, and was keen to host conferences, exhibitions and similar large events.
To boost the number of inbound international tourists, the home affairs department, in collaboration with the department of tourism, launched the trusted tour operator scheme for China and India, which was officially gazetted on Monday.
We are on a mission to attract holiday travellers into the province, who will come to the Free State for reasons other than visiting friends and family
— Free State premier Maqueen Letsoha-Mathae
This scheme is meant to overcome challenges with processing group visa applications from these countries, capacity constraints at foreign missions, and language barriers. “Approved tour operators will benefit from streamlined processes and reduced red tape, ensuring quicker turnaround times for group visa applications,” said home affairs minister Leon Schreiber.
Chinese tourists made more than 100-million outbound trips in 2023, according to the department, but South Africa only received 93,000 arrivals from this potentially lucrative market. Tourists from India accounted for just 3.9% of all international arrivals in the country, and those from China made up only 1.8% of arrivals.
De Lille said the scheme was conceptualised from work dating back to 2023, as they were trying to find a solution to visa application bottlenecks to attract more tourists from these two key markets.
She said the private sector played an important role in making this possible. “This is a pilot project. It’s a first for our country, so we will be learning from it. I encourage operators in the tourism sector to reach out to the department if there’s anything in the gazette they find concerning,”
Rosemary Anderson, chair of hospitality industry body Fedhasa, said they were positive about the future of the tourism sector, as the government was putting measures in place to ensure its growth. “While the trusted tour operator scheme is a welcome improvement, we hope the home affairs department works even harder to make our visa regime more welcoming so we can attract more international tourists from some of the large markets.”
Anderson said the hospitality industry was a “silver bullet” that was not being taken advantage of for job creation. “We could create so many more jobs in the country if there was more investment in the sector, and we made people aware that there are viable job opportunities in this space. This is somewhat frustrating as there is a need for more education about what the sector can do.”
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