JOHANNESBURG - South Africa has been named the “Global Destination of the Year” by the Global Sourcing Association, the department of trade and industry (dti) said late on Wednesday.
The Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr. Rob Davies says the award which is the fifth for South Africa since 2012 is a further accolade and recognition of South Africa’s value proposition and credible offering, the statement said.
The offering combines global best practice, a talented and scalable labour pool with government support to attract international outsourcing work into South Africa.
Davies said since the establishment of a global Business Process Services (BPS) footprint, South Africa has been recognised as a leading offshore BPS destination and has received several international awards.
Business process services are those outsourced to organisations that specialise in taking up outsourcing activities.
Specific business processes that are not the core competencies of an organisation can be outsourced to companies specialising in taking up those activities, giving the companies more flexibility to manage finances and operations.
South Africa beat off competition from Ukraine, Mauritius and Northern Ireland for the the global destination award.
“Since 2012 the South African Offshore Business Process Services (BPS) market has experienced compounded average growth of over 20% year on year and now boasts around 40 000 offshore jobs, with the UK being the leading buyer of South African BPS services followed by Australia and the USA.
This growth is expected to continue as the dti prepares to launch the revised BPS incentive scheme at the end of the year”, said Davies.
Minister Davies also congratulated Capita South Africa for winning three awards at the ceremony for The African Service Provider of the year; African Outsourcing Project of the year and for Excellence in Corporate Social Responsibility categories.
Minister Davies further acknowledged Callforce and Outworx on their nominations and Saratoga a Cape Town based technology solutions company for winning the digital transformation project of the year.
The Global Sourcing Association (GSA), selected Cape Town for its first Global Sourcing Summit held from 1-4 October.
The event saw over two hundred and forty global industry leaders participating in panel discussions, workshops and a plenary session which discussed industry relevant issues and trends such as automation and saw the launch of the Global Strategic Sourcing Standard.
Tourism in SA
At the 2018 International Travel Trade Show in Germany held in March 2018, South African Tourism chief executive Sisa Ntshona said that tourism is vitally important to the South African economy, and that the sector should be nurtured for sustained and inclusive growth.
Recent data from Stats SA showed how important tourism actually is.
Th tourism sector directly contributed 2,9 percent to South African gross domestic product (GDP) in 2016, according to the latest release of Stats SA’s annual Tourism Satellite Account for South Africa report.
This makes the tourism sector a larger contributor than agriculture, but smaller than other industries such as construction and mining.
The direct contribution of Travel & Tourism to South Africa's GDP was R136bn, 2.9 percent of total GDP in SA, according to World Travel and Tourism report 2018.
This figure is forecasted to rise by 2.4 percent in 2018, and to rise by 3.6 percent pa, from 2018-2028, to R197.9bn, 3.3 percent of total GDP in 2028.
In 2017 Travel & Tourism directly supported 726 500 jobs (4.5 percent of total employment). This is expected to rise by 1 percent in 2018 and rise by 2.9 percent pa to 980 000 jobs (5.2 percent of total employment) in 2028.
In 2017, the total contribution of Travel & Tourism to employment, including jobs indirectly supported by the industry was 9.5 percent of total employment (1 530 500 jobs). This is expected to rise by 3.3 percent in 2018 to 1 580 500 jobs and rise by 2.8 percent pa to 2 082 000 jobs in 2028 (11.1 percent of total).