South African Tourism Executive Committee and senior management

CEO of Tourism Business Council of South Africa: Mr Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa

CEO of South African Tourism Services Association: Mr David Frost

Ladies and gentlemen, good evening 

It gives me great pleasure to be able to share this evening with you. 

I would like to welcome our private and public sector tourism sector partners.

Let me take time to welcome our media that is in the room today,

You play a key role in ensuring these moments are shared with the world.

You help drive our stories and messages far and wide.

We are delighted that you could join us. 

As a broader sector, it is important for us to work together and tonight is about that. We really are here to celebrate and acknowledge the best that our country has to offer. 

All of us in this room understand the power of marketing and how important it is that as a destination we must remain relevant. 

Tonight we are here to witness how South African Tourism, in marketing our country, has taken an opportunity for us to re-shape the way our excellence is widely understood and celebrated through us.

No doubt, our country is widely celebrated and loved and we have all the recent accolades to show for it. 

But we know we can never sit on our laurels when it comes to marketing. 

So we are here with the single-minded purpose of continuing to build on the allure of South Africa as the premier leisure and business destination on the globe. 

Tourism plays a critical role in the broader South African economy. 

Our Industry supports a vibrant and complex value chain and is a sector characterised primarily by the people that work in it and the people that benefit from it. 

Collectively we have the responsibility to share our beautiful country with travellers in order to drive our economy. 

In order for us to achieve our collective ambitions, there needs to be a concerted effort by ALL of us, the entire industry, private and public, to ensure that we work closely together and leverage off each other in order to make sure that we get over the line. 

It is in this spirit of working together that we have found an opportunity where we can begin a journey beyond tourism recovery. 

In driving this and advancing our tourism ambitions, we need assets that we can all draw strength from in order to create memorable moments together.

Today, I am thrilled that we are here to share a moment where we recognise the power and the role that sports, and tourism play in the pursuit of inspiring the industry the nation and the world. Sport seeks to connect people while also playing a very important role in contributing to the country through creating jobs, feeding families and being a positive contributor of change in our communities. 

So let me invite you to enjoy your evening

Thank You.​