Thoughts on the new Sanparks Vision & Mission statements

[Lisbeth]

They have chosen students from the wrong faculty (Tourism Management). Have can they have the knowledge to decide what can and what cannot harm a delicate eco system

[H. erectus]

They have chosen students from the wrong faculty (Tourism Management)

Nope not a wrong choice 'cause in the package deal comes a
kind of promise of life support!!

You run the show, we call the shots, "take it or leave it"

[Lisbeth]

16 May 2013
The South African National Parks (SANParks) has made public its 2022 Responsible Tourism Strategy (2022 RTS), according to Glenn Phillips, SANParks managing executive: tourism and marketing, who said that the next 10 years will see SANParks doing things differently.
"We are not only seeing visitors' needs and expectation changing, but government funding for the National Parks is also changing.

"It is this new wave of change that necessitated a new thinking on how tourism in National Parks will be run, measured and developed in the next 10 years."

He said that this new strategy takes lead from a ground-breaking move that the SANParks board adopted in 2011, which seeks to define the objectives, guiding principles and values, as well as an implementation and monitoring plan for Nature-Based Responsible Tourism in National Parks. It also incorporates the aims of the National Tourism Sector Strategy (NTSS) launched in 2012 by the National Department of Tourism.

Funding a major challenge

According to Phillips, one of the major challenges facing SANParks is funding, as it is the conservation estate under the management of SANParks has grown by 558 000 hectares since the year 2000, and conservation is an expensive business. "The scope of SANParks' responsibilities is staggering. Apart from the conservation aspect and ongoing research, there are, for instance, 4223 kilometres of tourist roads that have to be maintained.

"If we were to extrapolate the last five years' revenue and operational cost trends over the coming 10 years, a scary picture emerges. It is estimated that 'profit' from tourism operations should be in the region of around R800 million whilst operational costs are expected to reach around R1.4 billion, that is a massive shortfall. The fight against the scourge of rhino poaching has also sucked in significant financial resources that SANParks simply does not have."

He said that SANParks tourism operates at very high occupancies and the opportunities to grow simply out of annual rate increases is just not sustainable. "Our only option is to develop additional products and services that lend themselves to the natural attributes in each specific park, but to do so in a responsible and sustainable manner, thereby still being able to deliver on the core mandate of biodiversity conservation.

"It is also important to note that this strategy strives to develop better ways in which communities, around the National Parks are able to benefit from protecting the parks that they live so close to and which have become a part of their lives, while at the same time responding to the needs of the new crop of visitors to our National Parks - whose preference is different to those of yesteryear.

"We are confident that with the co-operation of communities surrounding our parks, commitment from our staff and robust sales and marketing, we will be able to overcome whatever challenges might arise; the strategy is an adaptive one, but provides guiding light that will need adjusting now and again to give us the required output."

The new visitor

The new crop of visitors that SANParks wishes to attract, according to Phillips, will still respond to the lure of the wilderness, "but they want to do more than drive around in their car, hoping for a glimpse of the Big Five. They want to be out in the veld, hiking, biking, swimming, canoeing, beachcombing, mountaineering, dining under the stars. They expect more than a rondavel, a clean ablution block and a communal fire.

"The beauty of the National Parks is that there is room for every yearning; the strength of responsible tourism is that it balances the needs of visitors to the parks with the need for conservation and the aspirations of local communities, making sure that all are sustainable," concluded Phillips.

[Mel]

So in one sentence from obviously a yesteryear person:
SanParks is going to exploit the parks further - they just phrase it differently.

Really, where is the data coming from that the new target group expects more
than a rondavel and a camp fire etc.? So far, I'd deem it as convenient speculation.

[Bushcraft]

convenient speculation.

Enough said

[Mel]

SA’s hotel Industry in need of drastic boost

By SA Commercial Prop News 24/05/2013

SA’s hotel industry is emerging from a difficult period characterised by a combination of oversupply and lower demand.
Protea Hotels CEO Arthur Gillis is not happy about the 60% room occupancy across SA’s hotel industry. Falling bookings from SA’s traditional international arrivals and local business in the downturn exposed hotel oversupply after the 2010 soccer World Cup.
“Now we have price wars, sometimes down to R250/night,” said Gillis at the Hotel Investment Conference Africa (Hica) in Durban. “I defy anyone who’s not a money-laundering specialist to make money on that.”

He believes 1200-bed hotels generally aren’t profitable at even R600/night. Location is often the problem for some newer hotels. “There are excellent hotels trying to survive on 15%-20% occupancy and others built for R1bn that have never opened their doors. Sandton boomed, but even there four hotels closed their doors last year.”

This can be resolved by doubling international arrivals with government support, Gabriel Matar, Middle East & Africa director for Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels, suggests. Getting tourism working is critical, agrees Helder Pereira, CEO of Redefine Hotels, noting long-standing European favourite destination Portugal “still has shocking numbers compared with its potential”.

Undeterred, Tsogo Sun MD Graham Wood sees opportunity to expand by buying distressed hotels, which would be cheaper than building them.

And tourism minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk has announced an Industrial Development Corp audit of underutilised state properties for development into tourist attractions.

It’s even possible, depending on the property, that a few of these could follow the European model of boutique hotels, such as Spain’s paradores.

Tourism consultant Paul Bannister of Ignite has long cherished the idea of an SA chain of holiday camps to introduce first-timers to the holiday concept, as they did 50 or more years ago in Britain with the Butlin’s holiday camps. Intriguingly, Van Schalkwyk also announced a feasibility study for a pilot budget resort chain “aimed at an underserved market segment of would-be travellers earning less than R5000/month”.

Certainly, high on SA Tourism CEO Thulani Nzima’s wish list is driving domestic tourism past 2011’s R101bn and also up from 75% to 80% or 90% of the market. But his suggestion that this should be financed by credit seems strange, when concern over consumer overindebtedness is so high.

SA National Parks already boasts strong growth in black tourists to 434216 in its 2012/2013 financial year. This includes an impressive 19,4% increase in black overnight visitors in national parks, says SANParks managing executive Glenn Phillips.

SA Tourism profiles show domestic tourists generally prefer self-catering accommodation. Van Schalkwyk says there’s an economic purpose and political imperative to develop the lower-spending SA domestic market. Tsogo Sun’s Wood sees great potential here for the multiplying effect of job creation.

“We’re already supporting 60 SMMEs through the Tsogo Sun book-a-guesthouse scheme,” he says. “They’ve created about 200 jobs between them. If we all try this, adding new or extended opportunities in sectors from catering and supplies to building and transport, we can really make a dent in the 6m or so jobs needed across the country.”

Supporting fledgling SMMEs properly was one of Wood’s caveats. Figures from the Small Business Project show this does succeed: more than 50% of businesses supported by the Tourism Enterprise Partnership increased employment (against 16% nonsupported), and turnover by 44% (against 33%).

Domestic heritage and culture tourism strategies could mesh with a shift in focus among visitors from SA’s established markets of the US and Europe to result in a double win, boosting SA profits and jobs. The 2008 global crisis sparked a vogue for “staycations” — local gems they discovered where they could holiday closer to home, says Grant Thornton’s Gillian Saunders. Now when these consumers holiday internationally, they look for discovery travel, intrigued by heritage and cultures that reflect their yearning for self-expression.

Tourism Indaba 2013’s annual squad of hosted international journalists, joined this year by key travel bloggers, was often amazed at how much South Africans embraced their history. Says Olanireti Adekoge, Luanda-based representative of Nigeria’s Tour Brokers International: “I thought I knew a lot about SA but I didn’t realise there were so many wonderful museums and sites to visit. It was really well presented.”

To her, Vusi Mahlasela’s performance set at the heritage and culture speedmarketing trade show represented that surprise: “I thought, who’s this old man? Then he started to play and I was dancing! I’m going to buy his CDs.”

Adekoge is looking for experiences like this for her clients — all eager travellers who also favour the Middle and Far East.

Tourism Indaba 2013 buzzed as usual with diamond giveaways, beach partying and airline announcements. Air China is to introduce flights complementing SAA’s direct link to Beijing, Air Mauritius is reinstating direct Durban flights, SAA is code sharing with Air Seychelles, Etihad and Jet Airways.

But the basic message was to create jobs by promoting tourism to and in SA. Such pitches are expected from politicians such as Van Schalkwyk and KZN economic development & tourism MEC Mike Mabuyakhulu, especially ahead of an election year. They also echo the theme of the latest Travel & Tourism report — reducing barriers to economic growth and job creation — diplomatic since this is a World Economic Forum report and the WEF meeting was simultaneously meeting in Cape Town.

But Hica’s corporate heads were making similar noises. The consensus that it’s time to drive tourism arrivals (better flight pricing and easier visas, please) as well as look for inspired job creation. They know a stable, developing economy works for them too, and eventually so might staff from SMME startups.

As Bannister puts it: “Tourism is a perfect industry for developing unskilled and semiskilled people, because it’s all about the right attitude if you want to succeed.”

[Mel]

The new crop of visitors that SANParks wishes to attract, according to Phillips, will still respond to the lure of the wilderness, "but they want to do more than drive around in their car, hoping for a glimpse of the Big Five. They want to be out in the veld, hiking, biking, swimming, canoeing, beachcombing, mountaineering, dining under the stars. They expect more than a rondavel, a clean ablution block and a communal fire.

SA Tourism profiles show domestic tourists generally prefer self-catering accommodation.

I wonder who hasn't done their homework properly here.

[Richprins]

[Lisbeth]

......boutique hotels, such as Spain’s paradores.

What do they intend to use instead of the paradores

[Toko]

Molewa was responding to questions at a media briefing

Molewa said the department’s strategic priority areas were aligned with the National Development Plan, and that South Africa’s challenge was to find “a healthy balance” between the three pillars of sustainable development: economic growth, social development and environmental sustainability.

“Those three pillars must always connect, and none can be viewed independently from each other.”

The sustainable use of indigenous biological resources was “fundamental” to the development of the economy – in particular, bio-prospecting (investigating new pharmacological and other benefits from plant and animal species) and hunting, Molewa said.

“Recent estimates have placed the bio-prospecting industry’s contribution to GDP at R2.1 billion, which, if combined, places the contribution of the direct utilisation of indigenous biological resources at R8.3bn,” she said.

“In the previous financial year, the entire value chain of the hunting industry contributed some R6.2bn to the GDP. We will embark on a dedicated programme to provide support to the hunting and bio-prospecting industries to promote South Africa as the destination of choice for hunting, and as one of the most resource-rich countries to contribute to bio- prospecting.”

Economic growth and social development are important, and environmental sustainability only comes unfortunately in last place.