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SA tourism industry battles to recover

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Deputy Minister for Tourism, Elisabeth Thabethe says more needs to be done in terms of improving the country’s domestic tourism. However, Thebethe says all is not lost for the local tourism industry as the national department of Tourism has injected over R26 million to train over 500 food safety assurers countrywide.

She was speaking at the graduation ceremony of about 20 food safety graduates in Orkney in the North West.

Tourism industry battles to recover from significant declines in the number of international visitors following the past drought and the outbreak of food diseases including listeriosis.

In the North West about 20 food security assurers graduated and they are to be placed at hotel restaurants and other food outlets, while others stand a chance for job opportunities overseas.

The aim for these graduates is to penetrate the hospitality industry with the skill they had acquired from this programme.

Deputy Minister Thabethe says, however, they need to work hard to rejuvenate ailing tourism back to its former glory as a major contributor to the national economy.

“We must be concerned about the decline but we have to check what are the reasons, some reasons we do know them, its certificate issues and visas but minister of Home Affairs and Tourism with the Ministerial committee they will check on this issue and make sure they can come up with a balanced type of an approach to make sure that we can be able to see high numbers again growing and also improve on domestic tourism because we’ve got so much to offer, we have a beautiful country as South Africa.”

Meanwhile, about 500 youth across the country have benefited from the Food Safety programme which aims at instilling hospitality and food handling skills but in the North West and Gauteng only eleven have secured job placements… while the rest join the millions of unemployed youth still struggling to find jobs..

“Being at home is a set back because you have this much knowledge and we are doing nothing about it,” says a youth.

“It’s been very difficult staying at home asking parents for money you know cause its boring,” adds another youth.

Meanwhile, the national department of Tourism has committed to training over 1 500 more food safety assurers next year.

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