Durban - KwaZulu-Natal did not know exactly how much tourism was contributing to the economy because of difficulty obtaining information such as how many rooms were available in accommodation facilities and how many people were employed in the tourism sector.
Karen Kohler, a research manager at Tourism KZN, said on Wednesdaythat it was hard to get simple information to update the database of tourism assets and facilities, but the information officers were trying hard to do so.
“We are first trying to find out how many rooms are available in the province, and we are phoning tourism businesses to find out. The second exercise is to find out how many people are employed. Some B&B owners are reluctant to give out such information, believing it to be confidential. However, unless we know how many people are supported by the tourism sector, how can we say what its value and contribution is to the province?”
Kohler was speaking at a tourism statistics session in Pietermaritzburg arranged by Msunduzi Pietermaritzburg Tourism. She said they were trying to refine the current information so it could be 100 percent correct.
So far, she said, it was looking to be a good year for tourism, as opposed to last year which was poor.
The number of people who arrived at King Shaka International Airport each month this year was more than in the same months of the past four years.
A list of activities foreign tourists took part in showed that 64.5 percent of them shopped. Last year there were 4.98 million domestic tourists to KZN.
Things tourists did in the province included going to the beach, watching live sports matches, taking part in a sports event and attending a food and wine fair.
The Mercury