THE validity of South Africa’s tourism arrival statistics is currently being investigated in a joint project by the TBCSA and SA Tourism.

TBCSA chairman Tommy Edmond told attendees at one of this week’s TOMSA road shows that the coordinated effort with the Department of Home Affairs was aimed at verifying how the numbers are collected.

“We’ve concluded the first stage of the investigation and have raised three queries on the validity of the surveys that are run. We have never been able to get to how the statistics are collected and processed by Statistics South Africa,” he said.

SA Tourism chief marketing office Roshene Singh acknowledged that there seemed to be a discrepancy between the arrival statistics indicating growth that are released and the perception among tourism product owners that tourism demand from key source markets is soft.

“Nobody knows for sure why the statistics aren’t the same, but we do know for example that there are changes in travel behavior for instance with travellers staying in non-traditional areas or using different types of accommodation.

“We are working with the Department of Home Affairs to assess things like tourist spend and length of stay.”

SA Tourism, which is the recipient of the TOMSA levy, gave a presentation on its marketing efforts over the past year. In addition to product briefings and speed marketing initiatives, a post World Cup campaign filming couples from key markets experiencing the highlights of South Africa has been distributed through media.

“We are planning to open a new office in Brazil by 2012 and an office will also be opened in Nigeria by the end of the year,” said Singh highlighting the organisation’s new hub strategy.
    
A new country manager has been appointed for the United Kingdom and offices are also planned in Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Edmond bemoaned the lack of attendance at the countrywide TOMSA road shows saying it was an opportunity for levy collectors to find out how the levy is spent by SA Tourism. “We need better support for this function. This show is pathetic. A huge amount of effort has been made to ensure stakeholders attend and it’s an opportunity for collectors to comment on what SA Tourism has done with the levy.”

Since its inception in 1999, the TOMSA levy has raised some R600m for SA Tourism marketing efforts. From Jan to Jul 2011, R54m has already been raised. SA Tourism applies 100% of these levies towards marketing and promotional activities.

TBCSA ceo Mmatsatsi Marobe says the organisation is negotiating with SA Tourism for additional benefits for TOMSA levy collectors. These would include discounts at Indaba, discounts for Tourism Grading assessments and membeship, preferential profiling on the SA Tourism sites and using collectors for fam trips.

Marobe added that there are products that collect the levy, but don’t pay it over and also highlighted that there had been talk of an introduction of provincial taxes and local tourism levies which could affect the tourism sector. There was also a possibility that TOMSA could be extended to other areas of the tourism and travel sector, including travel agents.

“TOMSA is a private sector initiative aimed at providing additional funding for the marketing of destination South Africa. It’s a distressed time and this is the time to be out there, plugging SA.”