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Tourism Update sat down with the Tourism Business Council of South Africa CEO, Mmatšatši Ramawela, at the World Trade Market Africa exhibition, to discuss current tourism opportunities in South Africa.
Ramawela was emphatic that we have not nearly fully explored SA’s potential as a tourism destination. “One of the things about South Africa is how diverse we are, and we have not fully explored what the tourism potential in SA is. If you look at the tour packaging of our destinations, we need to explore some serious innovation, as there are many tourist attractions in our country that we haven’t packaged. For instance, we currently have a narrow packaging of our culture. If you want to see how serious this is, have a look at how big FIT (fully independent travellers) is in this country. And have a look at how big our return/repeat visitor is. At some point we need to track what the repeat visitor does when they come here. We know they do their own packaging and they find their own way through SA – what do they do while they are here? The day we start picking up what they do is when we realise that we have not fully explored what SA has to offer,” she says.
South Africa’s culinary offering and experience were other opportunities that Ramawela highlighted as ripe with opportunity. “We do a good job of being an international cuisine destination but we have not allowed our own SA food to take the stage. Across the board – our African food, our Afrikaans food (boboties and so forth) – they just haven’t come to the fore. So if somebody walks in and says ‘give me the SA typical dish’, we’ve only done that in a limited capacity.
“Another opportunity that is coming up is adventure tourism,” says Ramawela. She brings the Northern Cape region into the spotlight as a tourism destination that has hardly been touched. “We have not explored our desert – people don’t know there are deserts and desert experiences in SA, across the whole of the Northern Cape. You go to Dubai, and what does Dubai do? Dune experiences. We don’t offer dune safaris in SA, though we have beautiful deserts waiting to be explored.”
A contentious issue, not only in South Africa but globally, is that of the shared economy. While some industries are fighting it – represented in services such as Uber and Airbnb – pointing out that similar local service providers are losing business due to these shared-economy services, Ramawela says: “Let’s embrace it and shape it to benefit and enhance what we have. Whether it’s Uber or Airbnb – it’s the fourth industrial revolution. We need to promote exclusivity for our local businesses, yes, but we also need to embrace technology. Gone are the days where you would think ‘to book a game experience in the Delta, I have to speak to a person’. We need to use technology to make our destinations and attractions more easily accessible. People want to be able to book things on their smartphones, for example. I ask the question: did we have a session on the fourth industrial revolution here [at WTM]? No. We’re not having that conversation. People are scared, and rightfully so. But it can’t hold off, and success in its integration is about educating people.”
Ramawela also noted how knowledge and skills were not being passed on from seasoned skilled professionals to the next generation of skilled professionals, such as tour guides. She said she had observed a culture where those who possessed well-honed skills were choosing to keep those hard-learned skills to themselves, instead of seeing the passing on of that knowledge and learning as the leaving of a legacy, and making a mark on their particular industries by giving back through educating their successors. “It’s about what you are leaving behind, what people will remember you by. And I think that comes from doing good. You should be remembered for leaving your industry in good shape.”
As a final thought, Ramawela shared her passion for not just South African tourism, but for tourism across a united Southern Africa. “Let’s embrace Southern Africa. We win when we play together.” She encouraged the idea of cross-packaging destinations, to expand the enticement for inbound tourists to come to the African continent. “If we work this way, we win as a nation. What does that do for us? It breeds innovation, it freshens up the product offering for tour operators. The region wins, the standard of living of our people improves, and we begin to deal with the issue of poverty. In the way you do your business – make sure your neighbour benefits.”
Source: tourismupdate.co.za
