Cape Town - Government is increasing its investment in the tourism industry as it gears up to host the thousands of soccer fans who will be arriving in the country for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
"As we prepare to host the first ever African World Cup and the biggest sporting spectacular in the world, we are witnessing not only huge public sector investment, but also massive new investment by the tourism industry itself," said Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk.
Delivering his Budget Vote in Parliament on Thursday, he said the department had allocated more than R936 million of the Expanded Public Works Allocation for 2009-2012 to further develop the tourism sector.
"Special emphasis will be placed on the development of rural tourism. This will create job opportunities and develop skills that will increase the employability of the participants in the programme," said the minister.
Through the Tourism Enterprise Partnership Programme, the department has already given a major boost to the development of small and medium-sized tourism enterprises.
Transactions worth more than R4 billion have been facilitated since its inception in 2000 and, further to this, more than 5 500 enterprises have been assisted.
Mr van Schalkwyk said the department would be finalising a toolkit to assist local government with tourism development to ensure a more equitable geographic spread of the benefits of tourism.
"We are also working closely with provinces to finalise the Tourism Growth Strategy, which will help us formulate our response to the global economic recession, revitalise domestic tourism marketing and implement the sector skills plan," he said.
The minister said the Department of Trade and Industry had recently published the Codes of Good Practice and that this was a milestone in the process of achieving real and measurable transformation in the tourism sector.
"We are building a re-energised tourism department with a renewed focus on sustainable tourism growth to the benefit of all South Africans," said Mr van Schalkwyk.
