Tourism numbers are reflecting the damaging impact of the new Home Affairs Visa regulations, with Arrivals on the decline, as is the Business Confidence in the Tourism industry. It is no surprise that the two indicators go hand in hand!
The Tourism Business Council of South Africa (TBCSA) Tourism Business Index for the third quarter of this year is 92,4, the second lowest Index for the 3rd quarter since 2011, when it hit rock bottom at 70. The current Tourism Business Index is an improvement on the 83,6 Index registered for the previous quarter of this year, and an improvement on the projected 80,6 Index for the 3rd quarter. The main reasons for the lower Index are the ‘insufficient’ overseas leisure and business demand, cost of inputs, insufficient business demand locally, and the cost of staff. The weakening Rand is a positive which was highlighted by the Tourism Grading Council. The Index projection for the 4th quarter of this year is 94,2, a slight increase on the 3rd quarter.
TBCSA CEO Mmatšatši Ramawela said: ‘At a time when foreign tourists should be flocking to South Africa and leveraging on the weaker exchange rate, we are sad to note that this is the second consecutive quarter, wherein business has cited insufficient overseas leisure demand as the greatest negative contributing factor to their performance. Nonetheless, I am encouraged to see that despite these hurdles, there are signs of improved performance and optimism emerging’.
FEDHASA CEO Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa said that our country was ‘shooting itself in the foot’, by allowing other Tourist destinations to attract tourists away from our country! ‘Someone is eating our lunch’, he told a FEDHASA Western Cape meeting earlier this week, ‘because we are scoring own goals’! Thailand and Australia are benefiting from our country’s decreasing Tourism numbers. Declining tourism numbers mean lower occupancies, and this in turn impacts on Tourism industry suppliers, he said. He speculated that job losses could follow, and lamented the fact that the TBCSA is not represented on the inter-ministerial committee evaluating the impact of the Visa regulations, which does not appear to be coming to a decision on the regulations in a hurry!
FEDHASA has stated that it is not against the Visa regulations as such, but would like to provide input to the proper implementation of the regulations. Said Tshivhengwa: ‘SA has introduced its new visa regulations at a time when there are already other factors burdening our industry. Now another hurdle has been added. Tourists should not be required to take a trip to get a visa in order to take a trip. Fedhasa has been told that we don’t like children and that we support child trafficking. That is not true. We are just pointing out that no one can show us statistics on the size of the problem. Yes, they say even one child trafficked is one too many, but we say we need to know the size of the problem to know what measures to put in place. Children are likely not trafficked through our airports, but via our porous borders. We are just saying that if the government cannot implement the new regulations properly, it must be stopped until it can be done properly’.
Sources: Tourism Business Council of South Africa newsletter, SABC
Chris von Ulmenstein, WhaleTales Blog: www.whalecottage.com/blog Tel 082 55 11 323 Twitter:@WhaleCottage Facebook: click here
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