"This inaugural report is a milestone for the South African Travel and Tourism industry" says Mmatšatši Marobe, CEO of the TBCSA. "The index will keep the business community at large, well informed on the current and likely future performance of businesses operations in the sector. In the long-term, it will also contribute to positioning the industry as an important component of the South African economy."
This index is based on the results of a survey conducted in the last quarter of 2010.
Since the launch of the project in May last year, the TBI was in piloting phase. "After the project was launched, we compiled two pilot indices" says Gillian Saunders, principal consultant for GTSS. "During this time the index was adjusted and extended with the aim of increasing the sample of respondents, particularly in certain key sectors and sub-sectors," she explained.
The overall tourism index includes accommodation respondents and responses from other sub-sectors such as airlines, tour operators, coach operators and car hire companies, travel agents, tourism retailers, foreign exchange providers, conference centres as well as attractions.
Saunders added that the responses from the airlines, scheduled coach operators and car rental companies were still too few to allow for the development of a tourism transport sub-index; however the intention is to expand the number of responses within this sector so that a meaningful tourism transport sub-index can be developed in the future.
Among other key insights, the index reveals that in the last quarter of 2010, the industry's overall performance was weak as compared to performance levels in previous two quarters, a result which was largely expected. The index also highlights variations in the performance levels of the different sub-sectors, and sheds light on business expectations relating to factors such as employment levels and projected business growth capacity.
Pieter de Bruin - head of tourism at FNB Commercial - comments that the TBI is another initiative illustrating how FNB helps the tourism industry become world class.
