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KNOWING WHERE
TOURISM IS GOING
CHIEF OF TOURISM SUPPORT
SPEAKS!
Writes: Edwin Sipho
Rihlamvu
Ms Bulelwa
Seti,
Chief Director Tourism Support speaks
on the occasion of her 100 days in
office.
Tell us
about yourself and your
background.
I am a
Social Worker by profession and I have
been at the employ of the Department of
Social Development, where I was
responsible for the population development
programme. I became passionate about rural
development, for I personally witnessed
the abject poverty, destitution and need
that was written all over the faces of my
clients, that I came into daily contact
with, as I was discharging my duties. I
thus decided that it is incumbent upon me
to make a contribution, no matter how
small, in obviating the plight of my
lot.
The
programme that I was involved in focused
on population, against obtaining
demographic realities &endash; engaging
communities in identifying actual urgent
needs as opposed to perceived
"requirements" that were advanced by
development planners.
For
instance, we had to, in a participatory
planning (top down bottom up) process that
involved locals, decide whether a clinic
was an immediate need as opposed to
accessible water provision and so on.
Research, advocacy, operational planning
and the empowerment of locals were pillars
of our approach in all
interventions.
If you
were still at the Department of Social
Development today, what would your views
be regarding Women and Child Abuse on the
one hand, and the HIV/AIDS pandemic on the
other?
These two
topical issues are very critical in
cementing the resuscitation of our
dwindling social fiber. Whereas there are
entrenched legal recourses in place, there
are still sadly high incidences of women
and child abuse in the country, which
directly accounts for this high HIV AIDS
all-time record.
Thus I
would call for strong leadership
(including a renewed political buy-in);
focused strategies and a clear vision
about how to effectively arrest this
scourge. The time is now for the political
leadership to cascade to municipal, down
to levels and encourage the populace on
the ground to be vocal and visibly engage
with set up legal systems that are cable
of obviating the crisis in
question.
What
made you to be interested in this
position?
My
attraction to this position is a further
manifestation of my engraved passion -
being to entrench and reaffirm the dignity
of our Historically Disadvantaged
Individuals (HDI's) within the economic
mainstream, wherein they should equitably
participate.
The face
of tourism in the country should urgently
"change hands" and begin to be driven by
competent advocates. In short, I see my
interest in this position as being to
accelerate transformation within the
tourism industry, particularly focusing on
the following:
. Being
the quality assurer, of a set of economic
and business measurement and statistical
tools that is useful for South
Africa,
.
Intervening in the airlift / airline arena
to foster a freer flow of tourists to the
country,
. Setting
global standards to reduce 'leakage' in
the tourism economy,
.
Establishing a consistent human resources
base that, in partnership with tourism
training institutions, should be capable
of absorbing budding tourism professionals
to the fold and
.
Accelerating transformation concerning
ownership of tourism products. In this
regard, giving biting teeth to the Tourism
BEE Charter. mobilize direct and indirect
resources through working partnerships
with the battery of industry players
including government departments,
parastatal bodies, NGO's, etc. I am rooted
in the believe that tourism must remain
dynamic, relevant, and updated in line
with newly identified challenges while
being firmly anchored within the
parameters of international
standards.
There
have been numerous calls from the tour -
guiding sector for transformation to be
achieved soonest. How are you going to
address this issue?
Our
greatest challenge is the fact that we are
having these (especially Black) tour
guides that we intend training in foreign
languages, whereas they are not even
adequately competent in English. This may
pose as a formidable challenge in the fact
that our good intentions in seeking to
capacitate them in foreign languages, may
be an oversight, and negate our very
object. We need to be progressive, and
build a base where we first expose tour
guides to basic English, and then invest
in their tuition in other languages as
they improve.
Another
level that needs to be explored much more
robustly is creating conducive
environments for the tour-guides to thrive
in. We should be clear about the needs
analysis of the market, and its
preparedness to absorb black tour-guides
without prejudice. Furthermore, the more
established tour operators should be
prepared to accept aspirant HDI
tour-guides in the (currently white
dominated) industry so that they can gain
the necessary exposure and
experience.
That to me
would constitute massive strides towards
achieving transformation within the
sector. Government may need to legislate
some kind of an HDI quota system within
the tour-guiding industry should the
carrot approach of reasonably negotiating
transformation abort.
In
general, do you feel that enough is being
done to assist historically disadvantaged
individuals from entering into the tourism
industry and how do you think this could
be improved?
I believe
that things are certainly moving in the
right direction. There can be no doubt
that one of the key requirements for small
emerging tourism businesses is mentorship.
The larger and more anchored tourism
businesses can play a significant role in
the future sustainability of smaller
businesses, if they take the time and
effort to become involved. Having said
that, I am sure that in the coming years
we will see an increase in mentorship,
with established businesses looking to
bolster their BEE scorecards and
ratings.
In
terms of International Liaison, what plans
are there to make sure that agreements on
tourism are optimally taken advantage
of?
The
approach towards optimally leveraging
multi and bilateral engagements should be
a collaborative effort by all parties
within the Tourism Branch, led by the
Directorate Tourism International
Relations.
These
agreements should be individually
exploited to address the expressed needs
as identified by each component within the
Branch - human resources development,
research, quality assurance and business
development.
After
depositing the Branch's needs into a
"basket", Tourism International Relations
would then match each of them with the
agreements that are active and then invoke
their relevant articles to leverage
assistance.
How do
you think the relationship between
provinces and national government should
be strengthened, particularly around the
issue of cooperative
governance?
I think
what is important is to have clearly
defined roles and responsibilities for
each tier. National government's role in
this regard is to develop policy and
associated guidelines, coupled with
enabling frameworks for the efficient and
effective rolling-out of such at
provincial and subsequently local levels.
If this formula is correctly adhered to,
there will not be any possibility of
misunderstanding.
It is
equally important to engage in a
participatory planning and consultative
process with all the players that would be
involved in the value-chain so that their
buy-in is garnered on the basis of a
collective consensus. I believe that the
principles that I have alluded to equally
apply to our relationship with provinces
and form the basis for strengthened
cooperative governance.
You should
also be aware that in terms of
legislation, tourism is the responsibility
of provinces. The reason being that
through succinctly layout tourism
development strategies, communities on the
ground are inclined to benefit and extract
themselves from the poverty circle.
Therefore, by developing tourism products
at local level, the economic being of
communities will be enhanced. I believe
that local authorities should begin to
take the contribution of tourism as a
vehicle towards sustained economy and
poverty alleviation much more seriously,
and my contribution in that regard would
be to facilitate that process.
What
are the realities on the ground in terms
of tourism development, and how do you
propose they should be
improved?
In certain
instances provinces would have their
health plans, water and sanitation
strategies etc without having tourism
development plans. This is problematic
because without carefully crafted tourism
development plans the tourism potential of
that province may be dealt a blow or
subverted. I think we should start moving
towards a situation whereby municipalities
are encouraged to develop tourism
development plans referenced from the
global competitiveness study.
What
would you consider as the achievements
that highlight your 100 days in
office?
I should
point out from the outset that I am
surrounded by a supportive team of very
efficient and competent individuals. Thus
it would be unfair of me to claim that I
have achieved anything without making
reference to the fact that we work as a
collective whereas I provide
leadership.
Through my
leadership, the Chief Directorate has
amongst others convened provincial
registrars to look at the tour-guiding act
with the view of developing regulations
that would facilitate the rolling out of
such. Secondly, we have made remarkable
strides towards strengthening our
relationship with training providers such
as THETA around skills
development.
On the
international relations front, we lobbied
and facilitated a process, which led to
the election of South Africa as
Vice-President of the WTO General
Assembly. Furthermore, we have convened
three well-received tourism trade
workshops, which were held in Abu Dhabi,
Dubai and Al Ain in the Gulf State and
attended by South African Heads of Mission
in the Middle East, Asia and Africa.
The main
objective of these workshops was to
enhance their tourism knowledge as they
are expected to market the country. The
workshops also coincided with the launch
of Etihad Airways' twice a week flights to
Johannesburg. Etihad Airways will be the
sixth airline flying into South Africa
from the Middle East.
What is
the motto that you live your life
by?
Do what
you say you are going to do, do it to the
best of your ability or don't do it at
all.
South
African National Department of
Environmental Affairs and
Tourism
South
African Tourism - www.southafrica.net
South
African National Parks - www.sanparks.org
International
Marketing Council - www.sanparks.org.za
DEPARTMENT
OF ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS AND
TOURISM
SOUTH
AFRICA
Tel: 27
(12) 310 3940
Fax: 27
(12) 322 5754
Mobile:
073 902 4504
E-mail:
erihlamvu@deat.gov.za
Visit our
website: www.deat.gov.za
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