Simon Nare
Marketing South Africa as a tourist destination of choice will be the key focus of the Department of Tourism and this will receive a substantial chunk of its R2.3 billion budget allocation for the 2024/2025 financial year.
Department of Tourism Minister Patricia de Lille in her budget speech in the National Assembly on Tuesday revealed that SA Tourism will get R1.2 billion of the R2.3 billion of the department’s budget while the remaining money will be spread across other entities in the department.
The entity’s budget will also be spread across its five programmes with a significant portion allocated for leisure tourism marketing, business events and visitor experience among others.
“The allocation of to the entity’s core programmes include R836,8 million for leisure tourism marketing, R199,9 million for business events and R86,4 million for visitor experience.
“One of the key areas of work for this financial year will be implementation of our new Global Tourism Bran Campaign to showcase South Africa as a top-of-mind destination for all potential tourists in partnership with the private sector,” De Lille said.
The brand campaign was expertly tailored for each of the country’s priority source markets and the goal was to target consumer-centric, integrated marketing as well as digital channels among other things.
De Lille said these efforts would highlight the country’s wildlife, landscapes, rich cultural heritage, vibrant urban experiences, adventures across the length and breadth of the country and in doing that promote sustainable tourism practices.
The rest of the budget will be allocated as follows:
.R266 million for the Expanded Public Works Programme and
. R172 million for the various Tourism Incentive Programmes.
“The department is left with just over R1,1 billion to implement programmes that support the most vulnerable society, including unemployed youth and Small-Medium and Enterprises in rural villages and towns and are targeted nationally.
“The department’s programmes broadly include the Working for Tourism Programmes through EPWP, the TIP (Tourism Incentive Programme) which supports greater destination competitiveness, transformation and accelerated tourism and enterprise growth,” she said.
The minister said SA Tourism will continue with its work to market the country as a prime tourist destination and the numbers so far were looking good after the Covid pandemic nearly crippled the industry.
The country had also applied to host international events which in turn boosted the industry. The number of tourists visiting the country has increased significantly.
De Lille also highlighted the Tourism Incentive Programme which she said was allocated R172.1 million for the next financial year. This will go towards supporting the department’s various programmes such as The Market Access Support Programme, The Green Tourism Incentive Programme, The Tourism Transformation Fund and more.
The minister said in the past year, through the South African Tourism National Convention Bureau, the country sourced and submitted 95 bids for international business events to be hosted in these shores between 2024 and 2032.
These events have an estimated economic value of over R1.5 billion and could potentially attract 60 000 international and regional delegates to the country. Of those submitted the country has bagged 19 and will inject R84 million between 2024 and 2025.
And in terms of encouraging locals to travel and explore their country, De Lille said the department has further established marketing forums to deal with the fragmentation of the country and 10 of South Africa’s domestic travel performances have come with affordable deals.
These included initiatives such as Shot Left, Travel With Mzansi and The Your Country, Enjoy it as well as other initiatives that target locals in the summer.
“By promoting domestic travel and increasing domestic spending within the tourism ecosystem, the campaign not only reignited the passion for exploration among South Africans but addressed youth unemployment by creating job opportunities within the sector,’ she said.
INSIDE POLITICS
