Question NW2215 to the Minister of Tourism
16 December 2020 - NW2215
De Freitas, Mr MS to ask the Minister of Tourism
(a) What steps has she taken in the past three years to date in the tourism and hospitality sector to make it more representative of (i) gender, (ii) race, (ii) physically challenged and (iv) youth, (b) what are the successes that have been achieved, (c) how are these successes measured, (d) what is the total number of long-term jobs that were created and (e) what jobs were created?
Reply:
a) (i)- (iv) Steps that were taken in the past three years by the Department to make the tourism and hospitality sector more representative.
Whilst the government sets the policy framework through the B-BBEE Act and sector specific Codes as as amended, the private sector has a significant role to play in the changing of the partterns of ownership and mining full participation of designate group in the sector. Departmental efforts alone can never bring the desired change in terms of transformation. All programmes in the department are implemented with a bias towards supporting designated groups i.e. Women, Youth and Persons living with disabilities; and tourism development in rural areas amongst others. Departmental interventions include amongst others, skills development, market access, product development and enhancement, development finance, business development and supporting National Treasury in guiding public sector expenditure on tourism services. It is also worth noting that department‘s own expenditure is driven by the principles and prescripts that guides transformation.
(b) and (c) The Honourable member is referred to the past three years’ Annual Performance Reports as well as the Quarterly Performance Reports that were presented to the Portfolio Committee on Tourism for the detail and final numbers of all beneficiaries that completed the programmes of the department.
The Honourable Member is further referred to the detailed presentation made by the Tourism B-BBEE Charter Council to the Portfolio Committee on Tourism on 29 October 2019 on the State of Transformation in Tourism. The Department implements all its programmes in line with the Tourism B-BBEE Codes and provides support to the work done by the Charter Council.
(d) Not applicable, the question is about transformation of the sector.
(e) Not applicable.