Tourism Minister Patricia de Lille says tourism from the United States continues to surge, with a more than 10% increase in visitors, despite persistent claims of a so-called “White Genocide” in South Africa, claims she dismissed as false and increasingly discredited.
De Lille told the Portfolio Committee on Tourism in the National Assembly on Tuesday that the number of tourists from the US had gone up and indications were that the numbers continued to surge.
She was leading her department in the committee to brief it on the preparations and participation in the hosting of the G20 tourism meetings and engagements.
De Lille told parliamentarians that the government and individual departments must up its communication game to dispel these lies of a “White Genocide”.
She also lauded some private sectors who have joined the department’s campaign to denounce the genocide lies.
“We can see that our campaigns are beginning to show success because we are poking the lies of those who are claiming that we have a genocide in our country. We must continue to up our communication game to show that this is not true and its lies that there is genocide in the country,” said de Lille.
“Tourism especially between the United States and South Africa has grown by more than 10% and the flights, all the flights that are coming to South Africa from the US, they are full all the time.”
She added that a number of private companies have also responded and denounced the genocide lies and cited the Tourism Business Council and another inbound tourism institution which have exposed the genocide lies and have shown this was not true.
These private companies have shown through data they have released that tourism was growing in the country despite the blatant lies of genocide.
“If you look at the first quarter of this year, we have received more than 2.8 million tourists in our country and visitors. But we need to continue to punch holes in the lies that there is genocide in our country,” she said.
On the preparations for the G20 meetings, De Lille said the department has hosted successful tourism events so far in the year. She said the department has put together a joint planning committee that meet every Monday.
The committee was widely represented by business and township tourism representatives who sat at those meetings.
The department in its presentation to the committee pointed out that the country will use its G20 presidency to address three strategic priorities of the Government of National Unity which are to drive inclusive growth and job creation, reduce poverty and tackle high cost of living and build a capable, ethical, and developmental state.
The departmental presentation also pointed to advancing priorities of the African Union’s Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want which will be done in collaboration with the AU.
It said the highest level of engagement for the tourism sector would be the G20 Tourism Ministers’ Meeting which will take place in September and to be hosted by the Mpumalanga province.
The minister told the committee there were efforts to bring rural and township tourism to be part of the G20 legacy project as this sector was often left on the periphery and was not attracting as many visitors as other more established and popular forums.
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