Minister Kubayi-Ngubane once again confirms to Parliament that she doesn’t understand tourism
24 June 2020
The comments by the Minister of Tourism, MmamolokoKubayi-Ngubane made during a National Assembly plenary session held on 23 June 2020, confirms that she simply has no clue as to how the tourism industry functions. In a reply to oral questions posed to her, the Minister described how the Department of Tourism will be providing a platform for online promotion of products by small and medium tourism enterprises that sell products such as clothing, handcraft and art.
Tourists are not interested in online shopping because they already have other platforms available for this purpose. The tourism industry offers services and products that is primarily about an experience.
Tourists purchase arts, crafts and souvenirs as a memento of their experience. The Minister is delusional if she thinks that potential tourists would purchase these mementoes online when they have not travelled to and experienced the specific location.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) is of the view that a more logical and budget-efficient effort would be to promote the websites from which these tourism enterprises operate so that tourists are encouraged to visit their websites; explore future holiday destinations; and book their next trip.
The online selling of souvenirs is not in the ambit of tourism. Moreover, there are numerous government-sponsored tourism websites which have been left to wreck and ruin due to the government’s lack of maintenance, upgrades and lack of political will. The DA urges the Department to rather upgrade these websites and making it attractive for tourists to visit.
Creating a brand-new online portal is yet another example of how the ANC government would rather waste taxpayer’s money illogically, instead of doing what it should do to attract visitors to visit tourist sites.
The Department of Tourism’s job is to get people away from their computers and to get them to tour and visit South Africa. The Minister simply doesn’t understand this. It is no wonder that tourism enterprises are crashing and burning while thousands continue to lose their jobs thanks to tourism not opening up because of government’s lockdown regulations.
Issued by Manny De Freitas,DA Shadow Minister of Tourism, 24 June 2020
