Chair, hon Minister and Deputy Minister, hon members, tourism is one of the fastest growing industries in South Africa, as highlighted in the New Growth Path. Its potential to contribute towards job creation, poverty alleviation and the gross domestic product has been acknowledged by our government.
While national and provincial tourism organisations are chiefly responsible for the design and implementation of tourism strategies, as well as national and international marketing campaigns, it is the local government authorities that often shoulder the responsibility for promoting and supporting local tourism products. There is no doubt that local tourism, as it relates to general development, is a missed opportunity according to the White Paper of 1996.
There is a need to widen the focus of local government's impact on tourism and product development in how we manage our socioeconomic environment and provide services to our communities. Local government should ideally have the ability to support tourism. It is also important to note that municipalities are not homogenous in nature and therefore operate in a differentiated manner. The key roles or functions of municipalities when it comes to tourism include the following.
Firstly, they provide a strategic and operational role in maintaining a high-quality physical environment. Secondly, they serve as a facilitator to ensure that the needs of the whole destination - including residents, businesses and the environment - are represented and considered in the management of tourism.
They also provide links and continuity of policy between and across all municipal services, such as economic development planning, land use management, environmental health and roads; are a catalyst for partnerships by driving inward and external investment; co-ordinate and drive local tourism development by ensuring quality information services provision; and also drive an economic development agenda.
The role and profile of local government has recently been enhanced by the Cabinet-approved National Tourism Sector Strategy, NTSS. This strategy not only represents the core strategy document of government with respect to tourism, but also serves as a tool with which to drive change and improve the performance and competitiveness of the sector.
The NTSS recognises local government as a key partner of stakeholders in achieving the outcomes of the strategy. This is highlighted in various areas including in ensuring the geographic spread of tourism beyond just the conventional markets, with a special focus on rural tourism in terms of rural municipalities; ensuring responsible tourism, especially on projects that benefit the community; creating a single knowledge platform for tourism, data collection and information dissemination; developing a comprehensive framework for actively supporting local government in terms of local tourism development; funding of budgeting for tourism initiatives, skills and capacity to support tourism initiatives; asset identification and tourism infrastructure investment; and tourism-friendly bylaws and managing tourism information, including signage and information centres.
We, as Salga, therefore acknowledge that government has begun to see local government's role both in terms of the supply and demand of tourism growth and development. There are, however, a number of challenges that are hampering an integrated and co-ordinated approach towards tourism between governments at all levels. These include inadequate working relationships on tourism-related issues between municipalities and national regional stakeholders, resulting in a lack of partnership or a collective approach to planning for tourism.
As Salga, we believe that these challenges need to be addressed as local government would like to be on board to work closely with the department in achieving its key performance indicators, as highlighted in the Budget Vote, with particular focus on a number of tourism projects in the rural areas, as well as tourism interventions to facilitate, guide and support product development.
Currently, Salga is working closely with the department and the Development Bank of Southern Africa, DBSA, to outline or propose a comprehensive local government support programme, which fits in and can be aligned with all three of the department's strategic programmes. For example, under Tourism Development, which is Programme 2, there needs to be better co-ordination of funding of tourism projects.
While there is a variety of funding sources for existing tourism projects from national programmes, development agencies, provinces, foundations, as well as within other departments, such as Transport, Safety and Security and Arts and Culture, there is very limited co-ordination or alignment. There is also much criticism of the helicopter projects that appear in municipal spaces without the municipality's involvement or buy-in.
There is a need for guidelines that stipulate what conditions need to be in place in order to fund tourism plans and to improve the appropriateness of these plans and their likely implementation. When it comes to local government's role in supporting the tourism sector and small and medium- sized enterprise development, there are existing barriers.
These barriers include insufficient funding for businesses and not many options being readily available to encourage small-scale business development. Appropriate strategic support for entrepreneurs needs to be provided, but the capacity at municipal level to support the emerging tourism industry is not available.
Under Tourism Growth, which is Programme 3, we are proposing a greater emphasis on tourism awareness, capacity-building and guidance for municipalities. The level of expertise and focus that local municipalities have in these areas varies considerably and has resulted in uneven visitor and community experiences.
There needs to be a greater focus or investment to assist in the development of capacity and investment for local government to realise tourism opportunities. In the past the approach was just on having a few days of capacity-building training on what tourism is and the principles of responsible tourism. However, this did not result in a buy-in or improved implementation.
On Tourism Policy, Research, Monitoring and Evaluation, which is Programme 4, there are two key areas Salga wishes to highlight. The first revolves around unpacking and understanding spatial differentiation and unlocking tourism potential.
Not all municipal spaces are equal with regard to public, private or community capacity and social capital. Not all spaces are equal regarding tourism potential. While tourism cannot be developed everywhere, destinations with tourism potential can lead to robust economic development.
A spatial approach to tourism development which identifies high priority areas in the country may be a more strategic approach than a municipal bottom-up, supply-led approach, which presupposes that all spaces have equal potential and capabilities, and that detailed tourism plans are necessary in each and every area. The second area includes tourism research and information as it pertains to local government.
Not only is there a lack of information on trends locally, regionally, nationally and globally, but there is also a lack of information to guide investment by the private sector in particular, business and funding models; components of market and financial feasibility studies; and industry performance and sources of finances.
We are excited about the new stand-alone Department of Tourism, as tourism has been identified as one of the three important industries that can facilitate economic growth and thus contribute to halving poverty and unemployment by 2014 in terms of our country's Millennium Development Goals.
We are also excited about forging new and strong partnerships between national, provincial and local government in order to ensure that the implementation of local programmes stemming from national and provincial imperatives does take place. The successful programmes of the Department of Tourism need to work in partnership with key stakeholders and not in a parallel or conflicting manner.
Salga appreciates being part of the partnership and influencing these outcomes. I thank you very much, Chair. [Applause.]