Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa March 2013 | Page 54

HOSPITALITY

BY ISELLE MCCALMAN

Rural Tourism

Is The Way Forward

T

ourism is not an industr y in the
traditional sense because industries
are classified according to the goods
and services they produce, while tourism is a
consumption-based concept that depends on
the status of the consumer. This is the major
reason for the difficulty in measuring tourism’s
contribution to the economy of any country.
With the growing significance of tourism
globa l ly a nd t he i nc rea si ng econom ic
interdependence bet ween countries, it is
becoming vital that South African Tourism
conducts surveys of departing foreign tourists to
gain an understanding of the travel behaviour,
perceptions, buying process, travel patterns and
the amount spent on their trip in South Africa.
These surveys are the only measure of tourism
demand in South Africa.
Since 2002, South African Tourism has
commissioned a monthly survey of departing
foreign visitors 18 years and older exiting
through OR Tambo International Airport,
Cape Town International Airport and 10 land
border posts. The outcome makes for valuable
reading and is worth a wider interpretation,
rather than just looking at the numbers for the
sake of the knowledge.
Statistics for the first two quarters in 2012
told us the following: There were 7,0 million
domestic tourism trips taken in Q2 2012,
an increase of 13% in comparison to the 6,2
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March 2013 SA Real Estate Investor

million in Q2 2011. However the incidence of
domestic travel remained constant at 6.6% in
Q1 2012. Similarly, the share of holiday trips
decreased from 16% to 14% when comparing
Q2 2011 to Q2 2012. On the contrary, business
trips as well as religious based trips increased in
Q2 2012 in comparison to Q2 2011.
T he domestic revenue increased over
the period under observation by 9% from
R4,6 billion in Q2 2011 to R5.0 billion in Q2
2012. The increase in revenue was a result of
the increased average spend per trip, as well as
an increase in the number of trips during this
period. The most visited provinces in Q2 2012,
by domestic tourists, were Limpopo (22%)
followed by Gauteng (19%) and KwaZulu-Natal
(18%) mostly due to the Easter holiday traffic,
but overseas inbound tourists consistently prefer
Gauteng and Western Cape.*

“Most enterprises
fail because
entrepreneurs
ignore the reality of
the situation.”
Although the full year’s results are not
available yet, the industry is in agreement

that it was an overall good year for tourism in
South Africa. The country recovered quite well
from the highs and lows of the 2010 World
Cup aftermath, as well as the turmoil in the
international economic markets, translating
to higher domestic travel. The hospitality
industry reported an average growth of 2.2%
over the past 5 years, which includes bed
nights and length of stay. On the other hand
there has been a decline in international
leisure travel, mostly due to the unstable and
weak European and UK markets, which are
traditionally the feeder market for South
African inbound tourism.
This information begs two questions to be
asked: How dependant is South Africa still
on European and other international inbound
tourists? Can the increase in domestic and
regional (Southern African) travel boost the
tourism industry and increase the investment
potential?
H i s tor y show s t h at du r i n g t he pr e 20 08 pea k yea rs of abundant inbound,
non-A frican, tra ff ic the South A frican
tourism market certainly became complacent
in many ways. The world travel led,
competition was not that fierce and the local
operators and establishments creamed it.
There was little innovation, service levels
dropped and we offered the world more of
the same, relying on the country’s natural
resources and scenery to do the work. Adding
the increasing crime levels to the mix made
the picture look even bleaker.
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