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Domestic tourism needs to take a hard look at how it sells itself to black people and the younger generation, and must work to make itself more affordable.
These were some of the insights that emerged during panel discussions on domestic tourism and transformation at Africa’s Travel Indaba in Durban this week.
According to the most recent figures, domestic tourists have been staying at home because they are tightening their belts due to the ailing economy in the country.
Delegates at the indaba were anxious to learn how this could be reversed and how tourism between African countries could also be improved.
Mmatsatsi Ramawela, the CEO of the Tourism Business Council of SA, reminded delegates that charity begins at home, and said it was vital to get people to travel around their own country so they could develop a sense of pride about their surroundings and be welcoming hosts to foreign visitors.
“We need to ask how we are making it possible for domestic tourists to travel – 32% of South Africans cannot afford to travel,” she said.
Ramawela reminded delegates that the idea of air travel was intimidating for some South Africans and an effort needed to be made teach travel etiquette to first-time tourists to make them feel more comfortable.
According to Stats SA, the number of day trips taken by South Africans declined from about 44 million in 2015 to 39 million in 2015, while overnight trips were down from 45 million to 43 million over the same period. Spending was generally flat or down in some categories of travel.
Morongoe Ramphele, the deputy director-general of domestic tourism at the department of tourism, said the department had introduced a number of programmes to encourage travel among the elderly, the disabled and young people.
She outlined the skills initiatives, empowerment programmes and scorecards her department had put in place to help develop black tourism enterprises.
Encouraging black people to travel to tourist destinations was vital to growing the industry, but sometimes it took many small steps to get there.
“For me, you can walk to the park with your picnic. The next day, you drive; the next day, you stay over,” said Ramphele.
There were financial barriers to travel, but these could be overcome, she said.
“We need to address the affordability of domestic travel. Are our products for Africans or are they relating to the colonial era?” she asked.
Ramphele said the country’s traumatic past was another reason black people were sometimes reluctant to visit certain tourist attractions.
She recalled being turned away at the gate of the Kruger National Park during a school trip when she was in Grade 9.
That apartheid memory stayed with her and, years later, in 2006, she had to explain to her own children why she had not visited the world-famous park.
“How many of us are still stuck there? We need to deal with the psychological trauma that is there,” said Ramphele.
Rotea Sebatha, the marketing director of a four-star boutique lodge near Makhado in Limpopo, felt that tourism marketing bodies failed to portray enough black South Africans in their promotional material, which alienated potential customers.
“They do not portray the racial diversity and age groups. They are not showing black people, who are the majority of South Africans, when targeting domestic travellers,” she said.
However, she acknowledged the efforts made by the Sho’t Left initiative to reflect the country’s demographics.
Sho’t Left is a campaign that encourages domestic tourism. It is run by SA Tourism, the country’s official tourism marketing arm. Tesa Chikaponya, executive director of the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority, also touched on the need to demystify travel for first-generation tourists.
She said disposable income drove regional and domestic tourism, but stressed the importance of fostering the sector. She spoke about how it had kept tourism afloat in her country when international visitors were shunning Zimbabwe because they were spooked by the political upheaval there.
In a similar vein, other speakers remarked on how the outbreak of Ebola in 2014 had frightened away thousands of foreign tourists, but had not daunted domestic tourists, who knew the killer disease was restricted to a few west African countries.
Chikaponya highlighted the need for low-cost airlines to play their part in reducing travel costs so that domestic tourism could be expanded.
Differential pricing, which charges locals lower rates than foreign guests, was another effective way to stimulate demand.
Events such as the Victoria Falls Carnival had proved to be an effective way to sell hotel beds and tourist activities to locals and others from Africa when it was not peak holiday season, said Chikaponya.
She noted that Chinese people “travelled big time in their own country” and that African countries needed to develop a similar culture that was supported by saving programmes.
Chikaponya said Zimbabwe had a fly now, pay later scheme for civil servants to stimulate domestic travel.
A number of South African and international speakers, including Kwakye Donkor, a Ghanaian with extensive tourism marketing experience in southern Africa and across the continent, stressed the need for a “univisa” to make travel easier between African countries.
Wrapping up her speech, Ramawela reminded tourism business owners that they needed to be visible and relevant if they wanted to win clients.
Small operators, she said, should position themselves away from the industry’s “elephants” if they wanted to be noticed.
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