Lilizela Provincial Awards off to a great start with Women leading the charge in the Northern Cape  

The Tourism Grading Council of South Africa (TGCSA) recently met with the Lesotho Ministry of Tourism, Environment and Culture to facilitate a benchmarking exercise on grading standards to be undertaken by the Lesotho Tourism Development Corporation (LTDC).

South African Tourism’s Middle East, India and South East Asia (MEISEA) Hub, recently concluded a successful visit to the Saudi Arabian capital, Riyadh, meeting key travel partners.

Following a successful visit to the Central European markets last week, the stakeholder engagement roadshow involving South African Tourism (SA Tourism) and the Tourism Business Council of South Africa (TBCSA) moves to the United Kingdom (UK) this week.

Team South Africa made their way to Frankfurt, Germany, for the third and final leg of the Central European Roadshow on Thursday, 29 August, 2019.

South African Tourism and the Tourism Business Council of South Africa (TBCSA) made their way to Vienna, Austria for the second round of engagements during the Central European leg of the Global Roadshow yesterday.

South African Tourism (SA Tourism) and the Tourism Business Council of South Africa (TBCSA) have kicked-off the first leg of their Global Roadshow in Zurich, Switzerland in a bid to boost tourist arrivals to South Africa.

“From a TBCSA perspective it is important that we defend and grow this important market as well as other identified markets,” said TBCSA CEO, Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa

“The creation of jobs and business opportunities is in line with South African Tourism’s ‘We Do Tourism’ movement. It gets the whole country to rally behind the tourism industry, demonstrating the far-reaching impact of the tourism value chain,” she said.

The awards allow hospitality and tourism businesses the chance to compete against each other and gauge how they fare against similar businesses in the industry. Over a thousand entries were received for the 2019 Lilizela Tourism Awards with very little separating the contenders, indicating the high calibre of quality.

South Africa’s bidding support programme for business events, initiated three years ago, is bearing fruit. The Deputy Minister of Tourism, Fish Mahalela said in the opening session at the SAACI congress yesterday afternoon, that during the 2018-2019 financial year South Africa had a target of 105 submissions.

“The South African tourism sector is projected to grow by some R6 billion from R139 billion to more than R145 billion in 2019 – a great advantage for the economy.” This is according to the Acting Chairperson of SAACI, Kim Roberts. At the opening of the 33rd SAACI congress in Durban yesterday afternoon, Roberts said according to the World Travel and Tourism Council, the 2018 contribution of the tourism sector in South Africa directly accounted for 2.8 percent of real GDP.