Johannesburg - The major losses suffered by the rand against foreign currencies have pushed the local tourism arm to ask the government for more funds to cater for currency losses in their business.
South African Tourism confirmed on Monday that it was in discussions with the National Treasury to get a bigger slice of the budget because of the weaker rand.
The body’s budget rose from R880 million last year to R997m this year. SA Tourism did not indicate how much more it needs from the Treasury.
SA Tourism chief financial officer Tom Bouwer said they would meet with the Treasury this week to request more funding to be able to compete in the current tough environment.
The tourism body’s request to the Treasury followed a presentation it made to the portfolio committee on tourism a few weeks ago on the impact of the rand’s slide on its business.
SA Tourism has offices across the globe, where it promotes South Africa as a destination.
Most of its funds come from the government and the rest from a levy on big international events hosted by South Africa.
In its presentation to the committee, the body said the slide in the local currency has had an impact on its business.
Recently, DA MP Alan Ross McLoughlin told Parliament and the standing committee on appropriations that the rand has lost more than 50 percent of its value in the past 21 years.
He said that during 1994 the exchange rate was R3.75 to the dollar, but 21 years later, the exchange rate was more than R11 to the dollar.
Bouwer said their request to the Treasury was not to be given their funding in foreign currency, but they wanted more cash.
He said an increased budget would be able to counter the slide in the rand’s value.
“We want the Treasury to look at currency losses. They have to look at our budget, how to cater for currency losses,” said Bouwer.
The discussions with the Treasury this week will give an indication on whether SA Tourism will be given a budget increase in the next financial cycle.
SA Tourism also told MPs two weeks ago that they want to increase tourism’s contribution to the local economy from R99.5 billion this year to R155bn by 2020.
SA Tourism chairman Zwelibanzi Mntambo told MPs that the country was competing with the world’s major currencies, and the trading environment was very tough.
Mntambo said they want to increase the number of tourists to South Africa from the current 10 million to 13 million by 2020.
He added that on SA Tourism’s budget, what looked like a lot of money was not, because of the exchange rate.
The Star