South African National Tourism Sector Strategy (2011)

In March, the South African Cabinet approved the country’s National Tourism Sector Strategy (NTSS) to inspire and accelerate the responsible growth of the tourism industry from 2010 to 2020. The NTSS was adopted at a time when the tourism industry in South Africa is much greater than it was at the time of the country’s first democratic elections in 1994. Indeed, the tourism sector contributes today about 3% of South Africa’s GDP and provides approximately 4,4% of total employment. In fact, tourism is one of the six core pillars of growth of the New Growth Plan adopted by government in October 2010.

The NTSS does not deal specifically with marine tourism. In fact, the words “coast”, “marine” and “sea” do not appear in the document while the words “beach” and “coastal” appear only once, in the context of marketing and branch management (p 34) and in the context of community beneficiation (p 58) respectively.

The legal aspects of tourism are dealt with among the strategic clusters and thrusts under cluster 1: policy, strategy, regulations, governance, and monitoring and evaluation. The NTSS recognises that, “[w]hereas the White Paper on the Development and Promotion of Tourism of 1996 constitutes an overarching policy framework for tourism development and promotion in South Africa, the Tourism Act of 1993 provides the legislative framework for the promotion of tourism. In its current form, however, the Act does not support the implementation of the White Paper as broader policy framework, as its main objectives are marketing and tourist guide regulation. The Act also predates the Constitution of the Republic, and had not necessarily been aligned with constitutional objectives. Although some progress has been made in the implementation of the White Paper, this has not been properly monitored. Policies in different spheres of government are also misaligned, and tourism is poorly integrated with the development of other sectoral policies” (p 28). In order to address those issues, the NTSS identifies the need to create a legislative and regulatory environment for tourism development and promotion, which involves more specifically: (a) identifying policy and legislative impediments, and developing appropriate interventions; (b) embarking on an advocacy and awareness campaign on policies, legislation and regulations, targeting all key stakeholders and sector departments; (c) conducting periodic policy and regulatory reviews in consultation with stakeholders to establish gaps and international best practices; and (d) investigating mechanisms for creating sufficient policy, legislative and analytical capacity, targeting tourism officials in provinces and local government (p 29).

It is hoped that the specific and intricate legal features of marine tourism (including those highlighted on this blog) will be acknowledged and addressed when the abovementioned course of action is taken.