As inter-provincial travel reopens, domestic is the only option for South Africans looking to get away and the only chance for the tourism sector to revive itself. But how can local travel appeal to South Africans dealing with health and safety fears and mounting financial pressures?

Sisa Ntshona, CEO of SA Tourism, outlined two major steps that the organisation is taking to market domestic tourism to South Africans. Firstly, it will be launching a campaign on September 1, to inform and educate locals about tourism, and the health and safety protocols implemented in the sector. “It is aimed at empowering their information and knowledge, so they know what to expect and what to demand as they go to various activities in the sector,” he said.  

Secondly, it is contacting all tourism products, such as hotels and activities. “We say to them that for the foreseeable future, domestic tourism is the only revenue source we have. Therefore, we need to adjust our value proposition, pricing and offerings, in order to reflect the domestic market,” said Sisa. “My audience right now is only domestic; what price point and offering do I need to put together in order to be appropriate?”   

He said the organisation had now developed a recovery plan to revive the tourism sector, following the economic impact of COVID-19. “The plan talks about a couple of key elements, and the first is that the sector was not allowed to operate at all under lockdown levels 4 and 5. There was a responsibility to bail out the sector so that it didn’t deteriorate. You have to look at those extremes. The one is the sector totally shut and not allowed to operate, the other is international travel fully allowed to operate.

“If you partially open up, it means you need less money to bail out the sector because it is able to generate for itself. The other key element is identifying that the revival will be led from the inside out. Starting with domestic, then regional, then international. Because it’s all about building the confidence and trust of the public in order for them to consume tourism.”

Sisa said SA Tourism was, like many businesses around the world, re-evaluating its organisational structure. “With COVID-19, we need to be agile and super innovative. We are now looking at our structure. Does it offer us all of that?” He said it needed to question whether countries in which SA Tourism was present were still relevant in a COVID-19 environment. “Maybe that market may not be attractive to us, because of whatever issues might be in that market.”

He added that SA Tourism had been spending the lockdown period looking internally at getting efficiencies up. “We’re investing a lot in technology, and making sure we can get relevant research and insights to help the sector to operate.”