Load shedding remained a major challenge for South African travel and tourism businesses and should show the dent in their festive season’s margins, according to the Tourism Business Council of South Africa (TBCSA).
TBCSA CEO Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa said that the one single big challenge at the moment was energy security. “We had hoped that by now it would be solved, but it remains a big challenge. Our margins from the festive season will be affected because input costs increased as many businesses had to buy generators and diesel.”
Other challenges included the delay in the issuing of operator licences and the shortcomings of the current visa system to allow tourists ease of access into the country.
Tshivhengwa said the local aviation sector was also facing challenges, as many airlines had not returned to service due to financial challenges, leading to a domestic airlift shortage. He said if more international airlines were to come into play, the industry would need to increase domestic transport capacity for travellers to avoid bottlenecks.
Jonathan Ayache, the co-founder and CEO of the new regional airline LIFT, said that the major challenges they were facing were related to a sluggish local economy and the impact it had on local business, with further pressure driven by load shedding and its knock-on effects on inflation, which had dampened the demand for domestic travel. “It’s very difficult to say what impact the pressure and instability in the global market is going to have on top of this, but it could impact international passengers numbers coming into SA. This could be further exacerbated by higher input costs for airlines, which will need to be passed on to consumers and further reduce demand for travel.”
Tshivhengwa added, however, that the festive season proved a very good period for the sector. “We have seen growth that surpassed 2019 and 2020 in many areas. We almost reached full recovery from a revenue point of view in certain segments of the market. However, we still have a long way to go.”
Furthermore, Tshivhengwa said despite a lot of people still going to the KwaZulu-Natal region, more people chose the Cape and other inland areas as their holiday destinations as a result of the challenges faced by the beaches on the South Coast.
TBCSA said in a public statement that the industry would continue to claw back what it had lost during the Covid-19 pandemic period, and the sector aimed to remain competitive within its traditional source markets. “We believe that in this year we should see an increase in corporate travel, conferencing and events,” it added.
The organisation said that they would continue to ensure that there was a sustainable trading environment for tourism businesses in South Africa and that the sector continued to function properly. “We are also looking forward to our conference coming in September this year, which will allow the industry body and its members to map the way forward for tourism.”
BUSINESS REPORT