Parliament, Thursday, 8 September 2021 – The Portfolio Committee on Tourism yesterday elected Ms Tandi Mahambehlala as chairperson. In accepting her role, she highlighted the importance of an international approach to the committee’s work, alongside what the committee has been doing.
“The implementation of the mandate for the promotion of South Africa as a tourist destination, especially abroad, is handled in a fragmented manner,” continued Ms Mahambehlala. She also highlighted that “all possible scenarios should be explored for a coordinated, effective and efficient use of resources for the promotion of South Africa as a preferred tourist destination”.
The committee also received a briefing on the Council Plan of Action by Tourism Transformation Council of South Africa (TTCSA). This is a blueprint to provide strategic solutions to transformation challenges.
The committee heard that the TTCSA was established in June 2019 on a 3-year term. It was further reported that the 2018 State of Tourism Transformation Report revealed that the pace and extent of transformation showed noncompliance with the B-BBEE code. The committee raised its concerns that a limited number of enterprises achieved the 30% black-ownership target and less than 50% of enterprises in the three sub-sectors of accommodation, hospitality and travel achieved the minimum ownership targets.
The report further revealed that Limpopo province was the leader in transformation, with 56% of tourism products owned by black people, followed by Mpumalanga at 51% and KwaZulu-Natal at 48%. The committee learned that although the Western Cape has many tourism products, it is still the least transformed at 25%, followed by the Free State at 31% and Eastern Cape at 39%.
The committee heard that currently there is no consequence management for noncompliance with B-BBEE codes and that the pace of transformation is slow in small, medium and micro enterprises. Entities are set a target of an 85% South African staff complement and this noncompliance affects the tourism scorecard. One of the reasons for this is that the accommodation sector is largely a family-owned and run business and therefore there is no incentive for these owners to transform.
The committee noted the inroads made to empower women in leadership roles with the Executive Women Development Programme implemented in partnership with the University of South Africa (Unisa). The committee also called for more focused partnerships with other government departments, such as the Departments of Trade and Industry and of Labour on matters such as compliance with the sector codes and dealing with patterns of employment.
The committee further raised its concern over the low employment rate of South Africans in the tourism industry which impacts on unemployed youth. The committee was assured that the TTCSA has engaged the Department of Home Affairs to review the scarce skills category for employment of foreigners in this sector.
Ms Mahambehlala said that the number of issues raised by the committee, such as the reporting programmes for the development of women and Western Cape’s failure to transform has been noted. She further said the committee should engage more frequently with the TTCSA than its current yearly meeting.
ISSUED BY THE PARLIAMENTARY COMMUNICATION SERVICES ON BEHALF OF THE CHAIRPERSON OF THE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON TOURISM, MS TANDI MAHAMBEHLALA
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