Finance and Economic Opportunities
Question by:
Hon Cayla Murray
Answered by:
Hon Mireille Wenger
Question Number:
6
Question Body:
With regard to the Tourism Dialogue hosted on 10 October:
- (i) What were the salient issues highlighted in terms of tourism readiness and (ii) how is her Department ensuring these issues are addressed timeously and (b)(i) what intervention is required from the national government and (ii) how is the Department engaging with the national government to resolve these issues?
Answer Body:
- The dialogue addressed three broad areas, namely, accessibility (air and cruise connectivity and South Africa’s VISA regime); destination management and marketing (including visitor safety); and workforce readiness (skills needed for the sector to succeed).
- In each of these focus areas, initiatives are underway to either improve or to address obstacles that exist so as to enable the private sector. These range from work done by the Cape Town Air Access and Cruise Cape Town partnerships to improve accessibility; ongoing engagements with national government regarding the introduction of a remote working VISA, as well as various initiatives to address skills development through learnerships and work placement initiatives. A consolidated season readiness action plan is being finalised to pull the various initiatives together into one single plan.
- Identified interventions include:
- Finalisation of the roll-out of the third phase of the tourism monitors programme by the Department of Tourism
- Assistance from SANParks to improve safety and visible policing at Table Mountain National Park
- Support from SAPS to improve tourism safety
- Stabilisation of jet fuel supply to airports
- Under the auspices of the Welcome campaign, training of airport and cruise terminal frontline staff such as immigration officials in customer service
- Addressing VISA issues in key markets such as Nigeria, resolving issues with the eVisa system and accelerating the introduction of the remote work VISA
- A greater focus on skills required to enable the sector, including “soft skills”
- CATHSSETA to continue to fund skills development initiatives in the Western Cape industry
- Engagements occur on a bilateral basis with specific National Departments such as the Department of Tourism and the Department of Home Affairs. I, for example, travelled to Tshwane to meet with the National Minister of Home Affairs to discuss South Africa’s VISA regime, and the need for a remote work VISA. Engagements are also done through established national working groups with Provincial Governments or where the relevant National Departments and their entities such as South African Tourism serve on our steering committees for programmes such as Cruise Cape Town, Cape Town Air Access and the Western Cape Oceans Economy Working Group.
Date:
Friday, October 21, 2022
