Pretoria – Tourism Minister Derick Hanekom says several initiatives have been taken to address poor representation of black women in ownership as well as the insufficient representation of black people in the tourism sector.
This, according to Minister Hanekom, includes inadequate procurement of goods and services from black-owned enterprises by established businesses.
Presenting his department’s Budget Speech at the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) on Wednesday, Minister Hanekom said: “We are undertaking several initiatives to address these challenges. We have submitted amended Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment codes to the Department of Trade and Industry, with increased targets to accelerate transformation.
For the 2015/16 financial year, the department has been awarded a R1.8 billion budget.
“We will create a database of small, black-owned enterprises to supply goods and services to large enterprises, which will serve as a tool to transform the tourism supply chain,” he said.
The Minister said his department is working with the academic institutions developing an Executive Development Programme to contribute to a pipeline of black women who will be empowered to assume executive and directorship positions.
He said collaboration and synergy in the work of all three spheres of government is critical to the success of the tourism sector.
“Stakeholders from the private and public sector engaged in robust discussions, and the outcomes will be integrated into the plans of all three spheres of government.
“Our Local Government Tourism Toolkit guides municipalities to plan sustainably. We conduct a local government tourism course, which is accredited by the University of Pretoria, to empower tourism practitioners and councillors,” he said.
A few weeks ago, the Department of Tourism hosted Indaba 2015 in Durban, which was attended by more than 1000 exhibitors including 300 exhibitors from 20 African countries and about 2000 buyers from the world’s tourism source markets.
According to Minister Hanekom, the Indaba was a resounding success.
Minister Hanekom said the department has set itself an ambitious target of attracting 12 million international tourists by 2018.
“We also aim to increase domestic holiday trips from 2.8 million in 2014 to 4.1 million by 2020,” he said, adding that 54% of the budget goes to South African Tourism.
“Our cultural diversity, our recent liberation history and our ancient heritage sites like Maropeng and Mapungubwe provide an untapped niche for tourism. We will work closely with the Department of Arts and Culture, and with our provincial and local stakeholders, to identify other sites that can be developed,” he said. – SAnews.gov.za
