Why SA urgently needs a real-time knowledge driven tourism economy

Why SA urgently needs a real-time knowledge driven tourism economy

by KHUMBU SITHOLE

THE global financial crisis has the tourism industry extremely concerned. And it should be, given the huge importance of tourism to SA’s economy. There is no doubt that some damage cannot be avoided; it’s simply a question of severity. In the absence of hard facts, the extent of the damage will remain a function of speculation, which is certain to cause panic. Demand-side factors such as escalating costs of travel and food prices, difficulty to access credit, currency performance and so forth are better understood than how each supplier is affected in particular. This data would be vital in devising timeous appropriate responsive strategies and plans supported by empirical evidence.

This situation therefore presents an opportunity to re-examine how, as tourism practitioners, we conduct our business in such a way that we gravitate towards more aggressive knowledge generation to benefit the tourism economy.

One of the hallmarks of a knowledge-driven economy is ensuring adherence to minimum methodological requirements to ensure we are all measuring the same things, the same way in the interest of comparability.

Credit crunch crisis aside, tourism is progressively becoming more competitive as more countries embrace the industry as an instrument of economic development. Many of these nations have far more advanced national statistical systems from which tourism management benefits than SA. This calls for all local industry players dedicated to the sustainable global competitiveness of this industry to come together and find solutions in the spirit of partnership. For instance, we do not always have to conduct costly and time-consuming primary research when we can draw intelligence that tourism traders keep for their own purposes. It is an open secret that some players will not share their information.

Organisations such as the Gauteng Tourism Authority, for instance, have tried to track occupancy rates as these are crucial performance indicators. The resistance has been baffling. Admittedly, there are ethical issues that we need to get past in order to be comfortable that the information provided will be used for what it is intended for and not unethically abused by competitors.

The truth is, knowing how your specific business is performing in the midst of a crisis such as the present one may not afford a full view of potential trouble ahead. Product owners are not researchers -- and should not pretend to be. It is therefore prudent to allow tourism authorities to add value to their businesses, regardless of their size, by providing them with real-time industry intelligence. But this can only be a give-and-take arrangement.

Tourism authorities also need to move with speed and purpose in making greater investments in their internal intellectual capacity to inculcate the culture of a knowledge- driven economy. There is a need to reduce reliance on external consultants as they do not necessarily help with capacity, particularly if work is commissioned to them with little or no understanding of what to expect. While it may take time to get to where we want to be, we need to start somewhere, and quickly. We need to start by harnessing readily available administrative data that can be turned into business intelligence, before we undertake primary surveys which are costly and time-consuming.

This data is available. What is missing is the right attitude towards building bottom-up intelligence resources, benchmarked against global best practices.


Khumbu Sithole is senior manager, knowledge management, at Gauteng Tourism Authority