Growing the number of inbound seats through a national Air Access strategy is next on the agenda to grow tourism to South Africa, Minister of Tourism Patricia de Lille has said. To this end, she will soon be submitting the Air Access Tourism Marketing strategy to Cabinet for approval.
Speaking during a press conference last week to mark her first 100 days in office for the current term, De Lille said one of the key priorities of both the NDP and the Government of National Unity is to “grow the number of direct flights to and from South Africa by establishing an Air Access Tourism Marketing arm within SA Tourism as mandated by Cabinet in November 2023”.
De Lille said that Air Access, which has not yet recovered to 2019 levels, was an important element of growing tourism.
“There is a gap. We need to return to the pre-COVID figures so the Cabinet memo I will be submitting deals with a strategy to fill that gap.”
She said for the sector to deliver on the GNU priorities of inclusive growth and job creation the conditions must be created that were conducive to this.
“We finally have a Minister of Home Affairs who understands the impact and value of tourism, so we are sorting out the visa problems and we have started with India and China.”
De Lille will be visiting India in December to engage the government and private-sector tourism stakeholders to grow tourism between the two countries.
“We will use the engagements to market South Africa and all our many diverse offerings in all nine provinces and work with tour operators to ensure that they sell packages for travellers to visit different parts of the country.”
With the Trusted Tour Operator Scheme set to remove some of the key obstacles for travellers from India and China, De Lille said the next step in growing tourism would be to improve technology to move away from the country’s mostly manual visa systems.
“The more visas we can issue, the better for tourism,” she said.
South Africa has set a target of 15 million tourism arrivals by 2030. It reached 8,4 million in December 2023, still lower than the 10,2 million received in 2019. Between January and August this year, 5,8 million international arrivals were recorded, up 7% from the same period last year.
De Lille said South Africa would also be using its G20 Chairmanship, which will be handed over to South Africa in December, to sell the country. Her department will host three meetings in 2025, culminating in a Ministerial meeting with Tourism Ministers from G20 countries in September.
“We are going to use the opportunity to sell the beauty of South Africa to all G20 delegates through offering packages and support, encouraging them to stay longer and enjoy more of South Africa,” she said.
