Chairperson, hon Minister and hon members, a labour force survey recently released by Statistics SA indicates that South Africa's unemployment rate has increased from 24,9% in the previous year to 25,2% in the first quarter of this year. One may argue that if the number of people who have given up looking for jobs was taken into account, the actual figure may easily be in the region of between 36% to perhaps over 40%.
The fact is that one in every two young South Africans is unemployed. This is indeed a recipe for disaster. Analysts warn that failure to deliver more inclusive growth and failure to generate economic growth at the level required to create sustainable jobs, which the DA estimates should be at least 8%, could see South Africa facing a serious threat to its social stability.
Furthermore, the International Monetary Fund, IMF, has predicted that South Africa's economic growth will only manage to reach 2,8% this year, from 2,5% in 2012, and rise to a meagre 3,3% in the following year. If this poor trend continues to persist, it is highly unlikely that the country will meet the targets for creating jobs. Clearly, this situation is not good enough to meet the challenges of unemployment and poverty alleviation in the country.
Chairperson, it is within this context that the contribution of the tourism sector to the economy of South Africa must be appreciated and that we must locate the potential of the tourism sector which is to be the engine for job creation. It has the capacity to create various types of employment on a large scale, from the most specialised to the unskilled. Therefore, and rightfully so, tourism is considered to be the key sector with the potential to grow the economy and creating jobs.
The National Development Plan targets are to create 11 million additional jobs by 2030 and to increase the gross domestic product, GDP, by an annual 5,5% over the period. The National Tourism Sector Strategy, the NTSS, targets for 2020 are for the creation of 225 000 additional jobs and a total direct contribution of R499 billion to the GDP by 2020.
However, we have some concerns in this regard and they are as follows: Firstly, will the Department of Tourism be reviewing or extending some of the indicator targets to 2030 to coincide or align with the National Development Plan, the NDP, timeframe? Secondly, will the full-time equivalent jobs created through the Expanded Public Works Programme, EPWP, be counted towards the 225 000 additional jobs to be created by 2020 as many of these are project-based and others are temporary? Thirdly, the current growth rate stands at 1,5%. If this pace remains the same - if the NDP target of R499 billion by 2020 does not fall short by R150 billion - what are we going to do to mitigate those things?
There are also some other questions that we must ask.
Given the current contribution that tourism is making toward the GDP, has the department estimated the desired growth rate which is necessary to meet the 2020 targets? Given the current performance of the department, is it confident that it will actually meet those 2020 targets? Given the fact that most of the potential investment money is sitting in the private sector and not in the public sector, and that most of the employment in the tourism sector comes from the private sector, what is the Minister going to do to engage increasingly with the private sector with the view to ensuring continuous infrastructure investments in the tourism sector?
The Minister should perhaps consider offering them some form of incentives for employing young people such as the youth wage subsidy which the DA-led government in the Western Cape is implementing successfully. Given the fact that most of the tourism budget resides in the big cities, how does the NDT effectively monitor these funds and evaluate their transfers?
Now that we have positioned tourism to be a major engine for economic growth and remain determined to harness its direct and multiplier effects for employment and poverty eradication, and as we pursue our objective of capturing a fair share of over one billion annual tourist arrivals from the global tourism market, let us ensure that we do so with a degree of responsibility and in an environmentally sustainable manner. Sustainability should and must serve as a guiding principle for the implementation of our tourism policy.
Our development and management strategies should be implemented in a manner which ensures that tourism largely acts as a smokeless industry and that its ecological footprint remains as soft as possible. No one engaged directly or indirectly in the tourism industry should be allowed to secure short-term gains by resorting to what has been termed "the darker side of tourism".
South Africa has some of the greatest variety of fauna and flora in the world that perhaps has not been exploited for its tourism potential. South Africa is also rich in terms of biodiversity and is therefore a perfect candidate for ecotourism. Therefore more emphasis ought to be placed on ecotourism as a tourism product, whose parameters should be broader than those of nature tourism alone.
Tourism operators need to be encouraged to promote ecotourism through awareness campaigns on education and training of the local community as guides, which could also be turned into a grass-roots community-based movement. South Africa has a unique cultural heritage and a vast array of natural heritage. We are home to some of the world's most recognisable heritage sites.
The deep-rooted relationship of tourism and cultural assets should be fully recognised and provided for. Therefore, special attention should be given to rural tourism and tourism in small settlements where sizeable assets of our cultural and natural wealth exist. We also need to actively promote the development of village tourism as an important tourism product in order to spread tourism and its socioeconomic benefits to people in rural areas.
South Africa must also leverage its strength as one of the world's ancient civilisations. We are, after all, home to the cradle of humankind and, in the context of our rich and diverse natural heritage, must seek to increase our share of the huge international travel market, especially the long-haul segment of this market. We must also leverage our strength as one of Africa's largest economies for business, trade, meetings, conventions, sports and other events as well as exhibition tourism.
The slowdown in the global economy, especially in some of our targeted countries, has a negative impact on international arrivals. Therefore the NDT must place a sustained focus on and make considerable investment in domestic tourism. In most countries, domestic tourism is the foundation of a viable and sustainable tourism industry. Furthermore, it should be so designed that the infrastructure created to support it serves as a backbone for international tourism in times to come when the global economy recovers. South Africa also has some of the greatest adventure tourism assets in the world in the form of mountains, rivers, lakes and waterfalls. All of these must be developed and promoted. I must say that while on a plane recently, a colleague from the ANC informed me about a waterfall that is approximately 20 odd kilometres inland from Lusikisiki in the Eastern Cape. I can't quite recall the name, I think it's Kwabe, and it has great potential to be a major draw card if it were to be developed and marketed appropriately.
A new breed of young tourists with a marked preference for adventure and distant destinations in terms of hills, caves and forests is emerging. A young adventure-seeking tourist might not be looking for four-or five-star accommodation, but only for a simple, clean and affordable place to stay, and the question is: Are we meeting the requirements of this class of tourists and others, like the backpackers?
The department must also promote the development of sustainable resort facilities for beach and coastal tourism. There is a need to identify a series of government or even private sites for this purpose. There is great potential for this, especially in the Eastern Cape. Not too long ago, along with the committee, we visited Port St Johns, a coastal town, as part of our oversight responsibility. We discovered there are many awesome locations in and around Port St Johns with tremendous potential for tourism development. However, I was saddened by the neglect of such a beautiful town with so much potential.
South Africa's physical infrastructure is the very foundation on which tourism is to be built, and this ranges from ports of entry to all modes of transport - roads and railway to urban infrastructure - that are supporting tourism facilities such as access roads, power and electricity, water supply, sewage, sanitation and telecommunications, amongst others. Therefore investment in the development and proper maintenance of South Africa's infrastructure is crucial, especially the road network, which is particularly vital to tourism, for most of the passenger traffic is indeed by road.
Furthermore, many of the tourist circuits are entirely dependent on roads. There is also an urgent need to construct new roads and improve existing roads, especially rural roads linking our heritage sites and other places of tourism interest. I can give examples such as the R74 route in the Free State and the R66 route in KwaZulu-Natal - in my own constituency - which have been progressively deteriorating for a long time. And this has led to the closure of some businesses such as bed and breakfast facilities when some tourism attractions were taken off the tourist itinerary to the detriment of the local economy.
In conclusion, this further highlights the importance of proper co- ordination and co-operation between relevant sister government departments, for instance the Department of Home Affairs, and the Department of International Relations and Co-operation, amongst others, and in this case the Department of Transport.
I wish to reiterate what my colleague, the hon Farrow, raised earlier, namely that there also needs to be a healthy working relationship, synergy and alignment of purpose between the three spheres of government. In the absence of these, the department will fail to meet the targets envisaged in the National Tourism Sector Strategy, NTSS, and the NDP to the detriment of the economy and country. I thank you. [Time expired.] [Applause.]