Chairperson, Ministers, Deputy Ministers, officials of both departments and hon members. It is appropriate that, as we engage in this debate on the Tourism Budget Vote, we pay tribute to the youth of our country who, 33 years ago, took a far-reaching decision to stand up against the might and brutality of the apartheid system. It is a good opportunity to have this debate during the Fifa Confederations Cup with Bafana Bafana having improved their performance and making us proud as a country - congratulations! [Applause.]
We are engaged in this debate, when thousands of our young people are faced with a different set of challenges that are largely socioeconomic in nature. They don't have skills and are therefore unemployable. Some are tempted by the easy income that comes with crime. How do we make this debate relevant to young people for them to look forward to a better tomorrow? They look upon us to create opportunities for them to earn a living as tour guides and as active industry players in this sector of our economy. Therefore, the establishment of the National Youth Development Agency is most welcome and gives us an opportunity to give our young people some answers to their questions.
There's no denying the fact that our country has continued to see encouraging economic growth, especially in nontraditional areas such as tourism. It is and continues to be informed by the realisation that traditional economic drivers, such as mining and manufacturing, have over the years been witnessing accelerated decline due to a number of factors including costs and falling prices. Tourism for us therefore presents a very strategic and key area of growth as we seek to put our country on a development economic growth path.
We strongly believe that this sector has a potential to create jobs and grow our economy faster than any other sector based on our rich cultural diversity including our fauna and flora. The Fifa Confederations Cup gives us an opportunity to market our country and fully promote the various aspects of tourism, from remote nature reserves and game reserves to many cultures. We can promote the state of arts and entertainment facilities to the extent that it will reflect and make people from different countries understand that we have the best to offer.
In less than a year from now, thousands of people will descend on our shores to watch the world's biggest sporting event, the Fifa 2010 Soccer World Cup. But what opportunities do these current events present in the context of the economic growth we want for our country? They provide an opportunity for the meaningful, sustainable and inclusive implementation of broad-based black economic empowerment, BBEE, that ensures an improvement in the percentage of black and women suppliers in particular. These events provide us with an opportunity to put systems and measures in place that will ensure that as many of our people as possible do benefit from these games. We have a duty to look at the critical areas of equity, skills development and preferential procurement so that we do not have a situation where only a handful of our people, based on their historical advantage, continue to benefit.
Linked to this is the whole issue of start-up capital to enable the historically disadvantaged in our country to access this very important sector so that they also benefit economically. It is for this reason that it becomes important that the partnerships between established and emerging participants are strengthened so that there can be sharing of knowledge in the context of the political imperative of levelling the proverbial playing field.
We therefore have to identify those things that give our country and the African region a competitive advantage and work together to market and enhance these advantages. We know for instance that the development and sustainability of our tourism industry depends very much on the level of customer care. We therefore have to intensify training and skills development programmes focused on this area so that bad service does not reflect negatively on all of us. Major entities in the sector have an obligation to direct much of their skills development spend on historically disadvantaged individuals with 4% of that reserved for people with disabilities.
We must talk about those small emerging role-players, the small businesses, that may, for instance, have a historical rural feature and therefore need to attract tourists, whether as transport or accommodation providers. We are talking of a small village that might have a water feature, a hill or a mountain that is of historical significance, hearts and assets of heritage, which may appeal to tourists. Such people deserve to be given an opportunity to also benefit from the tourism boom that we are experiencing today. They may not have much in a way of glamour and glitz. In this regard, we must find creative stimulating ways of both local and international tourism.
We have a clear agenda of rural development in our country which must include tourism. Some of us in this House know very well that there are many features of cultural and ecobiodiversity significance in many of our rural areas and the challenge for us is to make these more commercially relevant to communities.
The last point that I wish to address is the whole issue of cultural tourism in as far as it relates to the battles that we still face. I am referring here to a need for us to open a debate around how best we can protect significant events such as Umkhosi Womhlanga Musebetho kaTshivenda, for instance, from those who may use such events for the wrong purposes.
To us as South Africans, such events and occasions define who we are and who we were. However, there is a danger that some may exploit these events for reasons that contradict the values that we have adopted, and as elected representatives we have to engage custodians of these events, such as amakhosi, to develop a common approach on these matters. Just as they can promote tourism, we also have a duty to protect them from unnecessary exploitation that can harm the dignity and soul of our children.
In this context, I hope we will have the occasion and opportunity to enrich our debate on issues such as health, tourism and human trafficking. Thank you. [Applause.]