It gives me pleasure to welcome you to the celebration of our International Tourist Guide Day. I am honoured to spend time with men and women who lead and participate in this important sector of human activity- tourism. Other than the travel operator and the Internet, the real contact that the tourist has with South Africa is through a tourist guide.
In fact most letters that the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism receives from tourists who share their experiences in the country, sing praises about the knowledge and professionalism of tourist guides.
Programme Director, I am informed that in 1989, during the Third International Convention of the World Federation of Tourist Guide Association, members of the association pondered at ideas to promote the awareness of professional tourists guides amongst the public. A number of ideas were put forward and that, eventually, were combined to create tourist guides special day.
The first International Tourist Guide Day was held in 1990 with 15 countries participating.
This year DEAT and the tourism stakeholders are acknowledging the role and the contribution of the tourist guides by way of empowering them to explore diligence in foreign languages and creating an enabling environment for them to equitably participate in economy of the industry.
However, I should hasten to add that our greatest achievement to date is the fact that we have trained tourist guides in foreign languages, such as German, French and Chinese. Plans are afoot to extend this foreign language training to mainstream languages of our core markets, which will include Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese and Italian. This initiative will ensure that we remain competitive in the market and encourage tourist in these segments to stay longer in the country.
Another level that needs to be explored much more robustly is creating conducive environment for the tourist-guides to thrive. We should be clear about the needs analysis of the market, and its preparedness to absorb black tourist-guides without prejudice.
Furthermore, the more established tour operators should be prepared to accept aspirant HDI tour-guides in the [currently white dominated] industry so that they can gain the necessary exposure and experience. That to me would constitute massive strides towards achieving transformation within the sector.
You will recall that when the Tourism Act was amended in 1998, particular attention in the Act was given to the developmental approach rather than a prescriptive approach. Attention was placed on transformation, particularly on black, rural and gender issues.
Once the Act was implemented there was a break down from the National Registrars to the Provincial registrars as well as between the provincial registrars and the private sector. The Second Tourism Amendment Act, which is a new system of dealing with tourist guide issues, was introduced in 2000.
Since the implementation of the Act on 1 October 2001, we have appointed the National Registrar and the 9 provincial registrars. One of the major roles of the national registrar is to disseminate information about tourist guides, establish associations of tourists guides and provide any other information to promote and develop the tourist guiding sector nationally, while the provincial registrars would have a record of tourist guides within their relevant provinces. This has resulted in 9 214 tourist who are currently registered nationally, of which 25% are historically disadvantaged individuals.
Ladies and Gentlemen, this deliberate theme for year's celebration being "Fighting Against Illegal Tourist Guiding" "Have you asked for the Badge & ID Card registration proof from your Tourist Guide" aptly demonstrate our resolve to combat illegal tourist guiding in the country?
You will recall that government has been widely criticized, especially by the media community for failing to act decisively against illegal tourist guiding. It is against this background that we will be dedicated to be aggressive in our campaign to obviate this problem.
In the above regard we will soon be exposing our Provincial Registrars to training in understanding their roles, responsibilities and powers in the terms of the Law that they can invoke to discipline illegal tourist guides. Close ties are also going to be forged with the South African Police Services so that they understand the detrimental implications of illegal tourist guiding and that in fact it is a criminal offence. Arts, heritage and cultural institutions and bodies are going to be sensitized request the Identifications and Badges from tour guides who bring tourists and report non-compliance to the Provincial Registrars and/or the police.
Parallel to the above would be a massive media campaign that would be aimed at informing the domestic and international public about how to identify an illegal tour guide and what steps to take to report such.
Ladies and Gentlemen the white paper on tourism state that tourism is government led and private sector driven. The transformation of the tourist guide sector has been, and remains a priority to our department, I believe that things are certainly moving in the right direction. There can be no doubt that one of the key requirements for small emerging tourism businesses is mentorship. The larger and more anchored tourism businesses can play a significant role in the future sustainability of smaller businesses, if they take the time and effort to become involved. Having said that, I am sure that in the coming years we will see an increase in mentorship, with established businesses looking to bolster their BEE scorecards and ratings.
The Tourism BEE Charter was launched last May at Indaba and subsequently the Tourism BEE Charter Council, which was inaugurated at the 4th Annual National Tourism Conference that was held at Sun City, on 6 October 2005. One of the Council's approaches to BEE is looking at the issue of opening up access for black investment. This includes access to finance to initiate BEE deals and ownership, but also providing services and skills to manage and sustain BEE after the deals are made.
Furthermore, the Council hopes to deliver on 12 interventions, which include the launching of Provincial Tourism BEE specialists networks, tourism charter help line as well as gazetting the Charter as a code of good practice aligned to the BEE Act. In that regard, the Council will have recognizable status in order to promote skills development, employment equity and strategic management within the tourism industry.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo - Nqcuka made it clear on announcing the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative (ASGISA) for South Africa that tourism holds the potential to grow the country's economy.
The Deputy President also said that while tourism is one of the fastest growing industries in the country, it is ready for the "second phase" of growth.
This meant increasing the industry's contribution to the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from 8% to 12% and increase employment to 400 000 by 2014.
This increased focus on tourism means that we should focus much more on skills development, which has been identified as key to the improvement of service and quality across all the different sub sectors of the tourism industry.
Our department together with SA Tourism have developed and are rolling out the domestic tourism growth strategy which aims at growing the number of domestic tourists, their spend, length of stay and distribution throughout the country and throughout the year, as well as to identify the key tourism products for the domestic tourism market. Furthermore, there is a need to promote nation building through tourism by growing domestic tourism in townships, rural areas, heritage sites, national parks and tourism icons. The tourist guides need to play a vital role in seeing the success of this strategy.
Ladies and Gentlemen, in his opening speech at the Indaba 2003, President Thabo Mbeki said, I quote "I would like to have time to breaks loose from my work environment, to rediscover myself as a person by being with people and things about whom and which I do not have to take decisions. I would go to the Eastern Cape of our country to visit the grave of a Khoi woman, Sarah Baartman, whose remains were returned to the country of her birth. I would visit the museums of Eastern Cape and I am certain that as I walk around these places with strange names I will learn much about the past."
The president's speech clearly depicted the value of the tourist guide sector in the tourism industry. A good tourist guide would be in attendance to give in depth the account of the History of Sarah Baartman from begin to end, take the President to the museum and curate the history and origins of the names that look strange to the President and watch him smile as he identifies with the origin of the names as they would invariable associate with the bitter past that is now the past! I am attempting to depict the caliber of a true tourist guide being that of human relations, knowledge about the history, places, fauna and flora, game and most importantly, the people of South Africa and their different cultures, religion etc.
We are the nation that has been endowed with many gifts, including scenic beauty, diverse cultures and hospitality. How we market South Africa as a value for money destination, remain globally competitive, contribute to the GDP as envisaged by the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa is a challenge that remains with all of us in the tourism industry but the quality tourist guide sector will add value to our efforts.
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