South African Tourism’s CEO Thulani Nzima has said the days of visiting the country purely for safari are passing, with more travellers incorporating other attractions into their trip.
Tourism is a major driver of the economic revenue in the southern African nation, and with Australia one of the top markets for international visitors, South Africa is keen to promote its wide variety of attractions.
“We have just emerged from a very dark history, so our culture and heritage is very important,” Nzima told Travel Weekly.
“South Africa is very resilient, consistent and continually invested in the Australian market.”
“Travellers are looking for more variety, and so we are moving away from pushing Africa as a safari nation, and packaging the destination differently.”
Nzima spoke about the latest tourism attractions to emerge that guide travellers on the paths walked by both Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Ghandi during his time in South Africa, noting that tourism is just as much about the people as it is the attractions themselves.
“We want to focus on niche tourism,” he told Travel Weekly.
“People want to immerse themselves in the culture they’re experiencing, they want to learn to cook the meals of the local community – that’s what we’re selling.”
Nzima added that despite Australian visitor numbers dropping to fourth most prominent, the Aussie market is still one of the top moneymaking sectors.
“We continue to have great confidence in Australia, and our level of investment is not reducing,” he said.
And the African tourism industry continues to grow larger, with tourism sector now contributing over 9% of South Africa’s gross domestic product and supporting over 1.5 million job opportunities countrywide.
“On the African continent, tourism directly and indirectly supports 20.5 million jobs and represents 8.1% of Africa’s GDP. In some countries, more than 50% of their Gross Domestic Product comes from tourism,” South Africa’s Minister for Tourism Derek Hanekom said.
Hanekom described Africa as an overall continent as having a unique range of offerings that no one place on earth can offer, with the key message throughout INDABA being that the people are what drive the strong tourism industry.
“Across Africa, we have unique sites that tell a compelling story about who we are, and the road that humanity has travelled.”
“We have also developed a wide range of products and services that create memorable experiences for tourists,” he added, emphasising Nzima’s point that South Africa doesn’t just boast safari experiences.
“Driving the growth of tourism in South Africa are a wealth of wonderful tourism assets: our landscape and biodiversity; our wildlife; our people and our cultural heritage.”
