Chair, we have managed to acknowledge the fact that we have witnessed the decline of tourist arrival in 2018. However, if you now analyse on a month to month basis, you would realise that we are gradually turning the corner. If you analyse the figures in August, you would realise that we have increased the numbers to about 140 000 arrivals from 125 000 per arrivals in July. So when you make monthly to monthly
analysis you would realise that we are gradually turning the corner.
We agree that there are challenges. One of them being the issue of tourists' safety. We are working very hard with the South African Police Service to create a safer environment for our tourists. But we want to make a call that it is a collective responsibility to create safer communities. We must all work together as individuals, as a nation and as the people to make sure that we create a safer environment for our communities so that even our tourists feel safe when they come to our country.
We have deployed various tourism monitors as a department in various hot spots areas to make sure that we create safer environments for our tourists. So we are working very hard and we are gradually turning the corner. We will make sure that we reach the target that the President has set of making sure that by 2030, we have 21 million tourists arrivals. Thank you very much.