South Africa Tourism’s acting CEO Sthembiso Dlamini has told Travel Weekly at Indaba that a weakening Rand has much to do with the rebound in South Africa’s visitor numbers in 2016.
As reported elsewhere in this report, South Africa has made a 15 percent year on year recovery for the first few months of this year after a disastrous 6.8 percent decline in 2015. To put that figure in perspective, Australia enjoyed an 8 percent increase in visitor numbers in 2015 and has back that up with a further 8.7 percent increase in visitor numbers for the March 2016 quarter.
Dlamini has been acting in the CEO’s role since Thulani Nzima resigned in late 2015. She has also maintained her COO’s role, but indicated that a new CEO ought to be announced in July as the board was close to making an appointment.
Visitor numbers from Australia to South Africa fell even more sharply in 2015 than the average with a fall of 10.8 down to 99,000 from 111,000 in 2014. The extent of the recovery in Australia wasn’t available as those numbers are lumped with Asia.
Dlamini said that even though the soft Rand was sparking a recovery, there was much more that could be done to improve tourism to South Africa. Turn around times on Visa applications was a key issue for visitors from China and other places Dlamini said, indicating that it was taking 21 days on average to approve visa applications.
Another key issue that Dlamini highlighted was the internal perceptions among Africans, including South Africans, was that tourists “were white people who came from a long, long way away and spent lots of money”. This in turn meant that visitor experiences were adversely affected as locals didn’t see tourists as a source of employment, prosperity and opportunities.
The solution, Dlamini said, was to turn more Africans into tourists. Already representing 29 percent of tourism dollars, domestic tourism was a key driver for future South African tourism both inside and outside of the country. Most South Africans receive 24 days annual leave on average, five more than Australians.
