Hon Chair, while we have not conducted a study, the department is indeed aware of the impact of crime on the growth of tourism as such it is mainly the feedback from both inbound trade and tourists alike.
This is more so when stories about incidents of crime against tourists are carried in the media, be it print, online, social media in their home countries. Negative word of mouth carried through these platforms has negatively impacted travel trade investment decisions as well as consumer travel decisions.
The department has indicated that it's working with SA Police Service, SAPS, to deal with these opportunistic criminals. While it will be self defeating to outline the operational details of the strategy, the one that hon Boshoff has requested. It is important to highlight that it includes operators and tourist awareness, physical deployment, application of technology and outreach to inbound
tourist trade. To this end we are also working closely with organised tourist industry.
As I've indicated the tourism safety forum is already in existence, it's functioning and some of the members of the forum are from the security sector namely that is Business Against Crime South Africa, the SA Banking Risk Information Centre and the SA Police Service in order to enhance safety to visitor experience.
Furthermore, as South Africans, we have a collective as I have indicated, I want to keep on emphasising this. We have a collective duty and responsibility to deal with the challenges of crime. We should not be standing there and casting stones. All of us are together in this and we must deal with this crime issues. We can't look away and think that it will disappear on its own.
Let us stand up against these unacceptable attacks, not just to tourists but to our own people because if we stand together and say enough is enough, we can't allow ourselves to be terrorised by few individuals. We have got the ability to and the capability to defeat it and we can defeat it. The only thing that we need is patriotism, commitment, dedication and willingness to see South Africa succeed and South Africa belongs to all of us.
Therefore all of us have got this obligation and responsibility to create a climate that is conducive for people who want to come and invest in South Africa, for people who want to visit South Africa and it's the responsibility for all of us. It can't be a matter that we want to be bystanders and think that somebody somewhere will resolve it. We all need to engage in this matter within the context of participatory democracy. Thank you very much.