Tourism dept seeks digitalisation answers

The Department of Tourism has embarked on a project to establish a digitalisation framework for the industry and produce adoption roadmaps for all tourism sub-sectors.

Tourism has established itself as one of the main drivers of economic growth and government has prioritised the industry in its National Development Plan 2030.

A report delivered last year by the World Travel & Tourism Council revealed the sector contributed 1.5 million jobs and R425.8 billion to the economy in 2018. This represents 8.6% of all economic activity in SA and 9.2% of total employment.

The pervasive spread of digital technology has had a major impact on the world's tourism economy and its influence continues to result in changes to the industry landscape.

Addressing the Africa Travel Indaba in May last year, president Cyril Ramaphosa said: “It is an age where the end-to-end travel experience has been optimised through technology – where decisions on where to go and where to stay are made on the basis of peer review. We must embrace technology. Artificial intelligence, blockchain and the Internet of things requires that our tourism offerings must be well aligned with enveloping technologies. In a few years to come, a tourist will land at our airports and have a self-driven car taking them to pre-programmed tourist destinations. We might soon have to design tourism offerings for robots.”

The Department of Tourism's project documentation adds a warning for the sector: “Given the significance of digital transformation, and the great speed and magnitude of disruptions it brings about, it may be safe to suggest that businesses unsuccessful in adapting to this change will fail.”

The department is now looking for a suitably qualified service provider to develop a digitalisation framework of the tourism sector in SA.

According to the tender advertisement, the scope of the contract entails:

• Conducting an assessment of the current state of digitalisation and digitisation in all tourism sub-sectors in SA;
• Developing a roadmap for the digitalisation in all sub-sectors;
• Identifying and map core business processes within all sub-sectors to inform the development of the digitalisation framework and proposal of digitisation areas;
• Incorporating current technology trends and concepts into the development of the framework;
• Investigating mobile ecosystem, including mobile payments and the integration of e-vouchers as a form of payments;
• Conducting an environmental scan on tourism focusing on policy and technology environment to inform the framework's development;
• Aligning the development of the digitalisation framework to relevant South African policies and strategies;
• Ensuring the framework and environmental scan scope include government to government, government to business, business to business and business to customer context and content; and
• Identifying and consult relevant tourism sector stakeholders at local, provincial and national level, including sub-sectors.

The department has stipulated the project must be completed within eight months.

The tender's briefing session attracted representatives from 13 companies. Interested parties have until 11am, 13 January to submit bids.

The department says the digitalisation project, once completed, will also provide it with invaluable guidance when it comes to deciding on its own investments and expenditure.

The department's technology strategy has not, however, been put on hold as it awaits the project's outcomes. Instead, recent announcements have revealed that technology features strongly in its agenda for the financial year.

Ramaphosa explained to the Indaba that SA's visa regime had been identified as one of the challenges that needed to be addressed and overcome. In addition to the “radical overhaul” to the visa dispensation currently under way, the president revealed government is working on introducing “a world-class e-visa system”.

The department is also making headway with its project to develop the National Tourism Information and Monitoring System, resulting in tender awards for four clusters in the last weeks of 2019 at a total cost of R16 million:

Cluster 2 (KwaZulu-Natal Province)
Successful bidder: Amathemba Nuroc
Value: R4 101 437

Cluster 3 (Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces)
Successful bidder: Incredible Inception
Value: R4 093 367

Cluster 4 (Gauteng and North West)
Successful bidder: Umbuso Training Services
Value: R3 964 320

Cluster 6 (Western Cape)
Successful bidder: Amathemba Skills Skylar Investment Holding
Value: R3 770 329