If you haven’t been watching the shorts slots on TV then the concept of Sho’t Left will most likely be completely alien to you. It’s a minibus taxi term that means, basically, ”pull over here” and has been adopted by the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism and South African Tourism as a catchphrase encouraging us to explore our own backyard.
I spoke to SA Tourism CEO Cheryl Carolus to find out more about the campaign and the strategy that is driving it, and asked her about the decision to focus on the homeboys.
”Firstly, it makes perfect business sense for the industry to transform and grow the domestic market,” she said.
”There are more than six million people out there who are able to and want to travel but, because of the historical disadvantages, don’t know where to start and who are not fami-liar with the concept of travelling for leisure purposes.”
Carolus explained that the research into the domestic market has shown that South Africans travel for five basic reasons: to visit friends and relatives, for holidays, for religious reasons, for business and for medical purposes.
Nearly two-thirds of trips are to visit friends and relatives, but only 16% travel to take holidays. However, this 16% accounts for 44% of all domestic travel expenditure.
”So by focusing on increasing holiday travel, we will increase the overall value of the domestic tourism market,” she added.
”Rand earners don’t need to spend vast amounts of money on expensive long-haul flights — they have more money to spend here at home.”
The strategy is also addressing the issue of seasonality by encouraging domestic tour operators to package special offers for the local market during the off-peak seasons.
”Addressing seasonality is vitally important,” said Carolus. ”We have traditional heavy focus around government school-holiday periods and then this huge drop-off with August to November being relatively quiet travelling months.
”I have also noticed from personal experience that a large portion of domestic travellers base their holidays around important events, such as the Two Oceans marathon, the North Sea Jazz Festival, the Grahamstown arts festival and so forth. Sometimes these events run concurrently and we need to look at separating them out so that there is not so much competition for beds around these peak periods.
”We are looking at the possibility of bringing all the major festivals and events under the spotlight to look at what markets they appeal to while at the same time looking at the issue of school holidays to try and make sure that they don’t clash,” says Carolus.
”We need to build a culture of leisure in this traumatised country of ours,” she explained.
”We have so much stress to contend with in this day and age. Work is stressful, life is stressful and people need to take time out to rediscover themselves and to find peace of mind. We need to encourage everyone who can to take a break for their mental and physical well-being. And we also need to encourage people who don’t know how to take a break to take that all-important first step.”
In this regard, the role of the high street travel agent is, as Carolus agreed, of vital importance.
”There has been a tendency for travel agents to concentrate their efforts on sending travellers somewhere else for a holiday — somewhere outside South Africa. We need to reinforce the relationship between domestic travellers and travel agents, by educating the agents with regards to the excellent domestic products we have and by educating the travellers to use agents as travel channels,” said Carolus.
And at a time when responsible tourism is becoming a growing force in determining where holidays are spent, surely there needs to be emphasis placed on transformation in the domestic tourism industry and the upliftment and empowerment of previously disadvantaged individuals and communities.
Carolus agreed wholeheartedly.
”I truly believe that tourism is an industry that can help the poorest of the poor to shake off the shackles of poverty and offer opportunities to change the fortunes of entire communities. Sadly, we still have the concept of travel being the realm of well-off white South Africans and not something that benefits everyone. This has to be addressed. We need to encourage participation by disadvantaged communities, show them where the opportunities for entrepreneurship lies and how tourism can be of benefit to them.”
But what about the obstacles that bureaucracy puts in the way of emerging black economic empowerment (BEE) and small to medium enterprises? Wading through the paperwork and the minefield of prerequisites needed to start up, for example, a tour operator business is often enough to put off even the most enterprising entrepreneur.
”I take on board what you are saying,” said Carolus. ”We are working with all relevant government departments to make the development of small businesses easier. The government has a responsibility to create a good and smooth process to help grow new businesses in the tourism industry, and we are looking at the concept of ‘one-stop shops’ to help iron out the creases in the systems and the breakdown in communication that often happens between departments.”