Open Line: South African Tourism Summit 2026 interview

0:00Alright, it's 20 minutes now before 10 o'clock. We'll come back with those WhatsApp voice notes in a moment. I want to bring in now a conversation about where we are. I told you that we brought casting live from South Africa's tourism investment summit at the four seasons hotel here at the Westcliffe and I promised to bring you some updates coming from this summit throughout the show. Joining me now at our makeshift studio is Chiffee Wachivanwa, who is the CEO of Tourism Business Council South Africa. Thank you so much for joining us. Good morning. Good morning, Clement. Thank you for having me. The message coming out of the summit is that tourism is economic policy. It's not simply just about attracting visitors, but it's an economic sector that connects investment, infrastructure, aviation, hospitality. There are small businesses as well. You name it. What's your contribution as the private sector in that economic policy? Well, tourism is mainly driven from the delivery point of view by the private sector. The role of government is to create an enabling environment so that tourism can thrive.

1:09So anything that is done on the ground, when a passenger, whether it's domestic travel, when they leave their home and go to a particular destination within the province, outside of the province, or even overseas, similarly so those that are coming into our country. As the private sector are the ones who ensure that the experience that we promise the travel is fulfilled, and they go back home with memories that they can share with others. Therefore, we are able to create jobs, we are able to impact the economy. And we importantly try to create jobs in rural areas for young people that stay in those rural areas. In terms of its impact on the economy, we all know that we're sitting at just under 5% the impact of the GDP. Just under a million people are employed within the tourism sector. And there's a lot of investment that flows into the country that goes from either inflow from outside and also within South African investing into infrastructure that enables tourism.

2:19So if you look at the tourism value chain, the way you're seeing the opportunities for investments, what are the biggest investment gaps at the moment? Well, what's interesting about tourism is that tourism happens at local government. And there has to be an investment by the public sector into the areas where tourists travel to. For example, in rural areas, tourists will go to, let me give you an example with your profits, the one who goes to the panorama route, the one who goes to various areas where they may not be a tarred road. So we rely on the public investment to make sure that the roads are clean, to make sure that the areas that are owned by government, whether it's provincial government, whether it's municipalities, they are clean enough for tourists to be able to go there. And enjoy the scenery that's there. So there's public investment. There's also private investment. The private investment goes to mainly tourism products, whether it's hotels, whether the coming in form of big hotels, guest houses, and many other experiences.

3:27As an example, it could be an experience of a banje jumping in many others. So that's where the private sector comes in and invests in those particular experiences. But more importantly, when we look at all this investment, where there's a private sector investing, where there's a public sector investing, is that we also need to look at community investment. Are we investing in communities that live in and around their attractions that we take our tourists to? And that's an area where we need to pay more attention to, because we cannot have tourism, a product driving, communities are not thriving. So we need to make sure. The last part is that we also need to invest in youth, skilling the youth, making sure that there are jobs or job opportunities to make sure that they can introduce new products and so forth and so on. So within the value chain, there is a whole lot more things that one can do within the tourism space. We actually believe that tourism is a low-hanging fruit in terms of low barriers to entry for any entrepreneur wants to come in.

4:29You don't need to be highly educated to get into tourism. You just need to love people and have a unique product that people will love to go and visit or a unique experience and therefore people will be able to go and visit. So it's one area of our economy that is entirely dependent on how we as South African treat those that come into our country to experience tourism. And also we treat ourselves across the provinces to enjoy various attractions. I just hope that we also focus on curating opportunities for us as local travelers. Because often when you go, let's take the Kruger for instance. I mean, it's so outpriced for the local market. It's very difficult. I mean, if you want to go to like specific places in the Kruger and I'm not just talking high and it's very expensive and sometimes locals are like, okay, we hear that these places are there, there's investments in these places but we are outpriced as the local market because these are, you know, you pay in dollars.

5:31Now, you know, in South Africa we have, you know, different price points for, for, for, you know, different products and experiences. And this is something that we're going to be showcasing. We are actually as a tourism business council developing a domestic campaign which is going to focus on travelers in three categories. Travelers that will be traveling on budget, those that are in the mid range and those that are in the top range. At the end of the day, if you all are going to go to a particular destination and experience on the ground still costs the same, whether you are high end of mid range or on budget. So we're developing a campaign so we can showcase that you can travel the country on different price range. Of course, if you're going to go to a five star deluxe property and you want to stay there, the experience at the five star comes at a price tag but you can also travel at a three star. We also have one star, we also have guest houses. So it's a choice that each traveler needs to make to ensure that, you know, it meets your budget. So I always say that South Africa is a destination that anyone can be able to travel.

6:40Whether you travel by bus, whether you fly, whether you rent a car and so forth and so on, you should be able to get around the country. It's just that sometimes, you know, a lot of us want the luxurious part of everything. Of course, if you want to fly business class in a life-led seat, you're going to have to pay premium for that. But you can still fly economy and you can book on time, especially those that want to travel in December. This is the good time to book so that you can get a good president. Chifirwa Chivenwa, CEO of the Tourism Business Council, South Africa. Thank you so much for joining us.