The Department of Tourism is engaging Treasury to protect SA Tourism’s budget from the depreciation of the rand, Minister of Tourism, Derek Hanekom, told Tourism Update.
Speaking on the sidelines of WTM last week, Hanekom said the department had already started discussing with Treasury the extent to which the exchange rate had impacted on SA Tourism’s country offices.
The Minister said the department wanted to address the problem of less and less money being available. According to him, one of the proposals being looked at was for SA Tourism’s budget to be made available in foreign currency. He added that other contingency measures were also being looked at that would allow for the budget to be compensated, should a further weakening of the rand occur.
Last month SA Tourism CEO, Thulani Nzima, revealed that the organisation had lost R300m (€19m) of its international marketing budget over the past three years and about R30m (€1.9m) so far this year because of the depreciation of the rand.
