Chairperson, hon Ministers, hon members, ladies and gentlemen, ours is an awesome country. We live in one of the most beautiful lands on Planet Earth. We are blessed and endowed by nature with enviable gifts, such as a rich biodiversity, valuable natural resources, a vast array of plant and animal species, rivers, lakes, oceans with sunny beaches, towering mountains and a thriving multicultural, multiethnic, pluralistic society to add colour to them all. Historically speaking, we are the custodians of the cradle of civilisation and, more recently, the architects of a political legacy second to none, when we arrived at the time of the rainbow nation in 1994.
These are our priceless assets, yet South Africa has a meagre market share of just about 1% of the almost US$1 trillion foreign tourism market. However, I'm not saying this is an indictment of your department, hon Minister. Is is not ironic, relatively speaking, that tiny little island nation states, like Mauritius, and others like the Maldives, which consist of hundreds of little atolls, have managed to continuously capture the imagination of global tourists? Compare what we have to what they have to offer in regard to places of interest to tourists, etc. Yet they manage respectively to sustain their small economies primarily through their tourism industry, which is no mean feat.
We need to ask ourselves, and we must ask, what it is that they are doing right and we are not. In spite of all our strengths, which I've just explained, why are we in danger of lagging behind in the global tourism market? These are critical questions and the answers may assist us as we seek solutions to the numerous challenges we face in a highly competitive global tourism market. They will also guide us in the formulation of plans, enabling legislation and policy for the growth and promotion of tourism in our beautiful country.
It is my considered opinion that the answers to the questions I am posing will surely include the following three things, among others. I say again and I emphasise that this is not an indictment of your department but of the industry and the tourism sector. The first is service excellence and work ethics; second is appropriate skills and capacity; and third, very importantly, is an appropriate budget accompanied by unwavering political support. That is what we are lacking. A cursory glance at our tourism sector will unveil a deficit of all three enumerated factors.
The UN World Tourism Organisation predicts that more than 1 billion people will travel to other countries in this year alone. We must capture and harness this great opportunity to create much needed jobs in a growth market. The World Tourism Organisation's estimates will reach approximately 1,8 billion international travellers by 2013.
Given the fact that tourism is considered to be one of the key economic drivers in helping to reduce unemployment and poverty in our country, we must not, and simply cannot, afford to miss this boat if we are to meet our National Tourism Sector Strategy targets. These have been set in line with the vision of the New Growth Path, which expects this department and the tourism sector to create 225 000 jobs by 2020, as well as to increase the sector's contribution to the national GDP from an estimated R189,4 billion in 2009 to R499 billion by the year 2020.
The DA considers the tourism sector, being the fastest growing sector in South Africa, as having the greatest potential to create job opportunities for our youth, many of whom are unemployed today. It could empower the youth by giving them the necessary skills and experience and the required confidence for future employment. However, this will require a collective effort and, as my colleagues from the committee have also emphasised, greater synergy and co-operation among the various relevant government departments, especially the departments of Home Affairs, International Relations and Co-operation, Trade and Industry, Basic Education and Higher Education and Training, as well as very meaningful support from the private sector.
First and foremost, it is important that we do both an internal skills audit of the Department of Tourism itself, and skills audits across the tourism sector in general. I draw your attention to this, Minister, but I'm new to this portfolio and you may have done so - I don't know. We must do these audits in order to identify the existing skills gaps. The fact that we have a capacity problem and skills gaps within the department is evident from the fact that we have dedicated almost - if I may say so - R29 billion from the budget programmes to meeting the expenses of consultants.
Information gleaned from such a skills audit can then be communicated to the Departments of Basic and Higher Education for inclusion in their curriculum design and admission policy processes. Subjects that address these skills can be seriously adopted and offered at school and tertiary level and fed into the FET colleges. I believe they are currently offered as an undesignated subject at high school level. For me, this is an indication that tourism is not taken seriously enough.
We must capture their imagination and direct the attention and interest of these young minds towards tourism in general and to the industry in particular, as some of my colleagues have said. We must inform them of the various programmes. It's no use simply having these programmes - do young people know that they can access them? That is the question. So, we must inform them of the various programmes being offered by the department for their benefit. There are programmes like the National Youth Chefs Training Programme, the National Tourism Careers Expo and the Hospitality Youth Initiative, all of which are designed to contribute to skills development and job creation.
In conclusion, the success of our tourism industry will depend on the continuous availability of well-skilled, well-trained, well-mannered, proudly South African men and women with a real passion for service excellence at every level - from the top to middle-management level and then right down to the ordinary worker in the sector. This must be achieved if we are to attract more people to visiting our beautiful country. This can be achieved if government puts its money where its mouth is. It can be achieved if all the stakeholders come to the table. [Applause.]