Johannesburg - The tourism sector should account for 9 percent of SA’s gross domestic product in the next five years, up from 3 percent currently.
This is according to South African Tourism’s newly-appointed chief executive Sisa Ntshona, who who was selected to run the organisation in September.
Last year revenue from the country’s tourism sector declined 7.3 percent compared to 9 percent growth recorded in 2014. Visitors from Africa fell by 4.9 percent, according to Grant Thornton.
Nsthona invites all South African citizens to join him on his journey in growing the South African economy through tourism. He said the organisation want to bring more than 5 million foreign tourists into South Africa.
“We need to include everyone to grow the economy of this country, if everyone is excluded then we are not fulfilling the mandate. We want to interact with those ideas to make things easier for tourist. Tourist does a lot of contribution in our economy because they also buy in the malls”, he said
Nsthona adds South Africa will need to work hard to attract foreign tourists to the country.
“Although we have more foreign tourists than domestic tourists, we still have to make sure that we have the best products to attract more foreign tourists.”
Ntshosa also encouraged South Africans to travel around the country to boost the economy.
BUSINESS REPORT