ANDY SEARLE | Digital skills can speed recovery in SA’s jobs-rich tourism sector

SAs travel and tourism has a heavy weight to carry.

Given the country’s abundant natural beauty, the sector has traditionally been a vital cog in SA’s economic growth engine, and it is now expected to drive the country’s economic recovery. According to the World Travel and Tourism Council’s economic impact report, the sector is expected to grow at an annual rate above 7% over the next decade, far outpacing SA’s overall economic growth rate and is also expected to create more than 800,000 jobs to reach more than 1.9-million by 2032.

However, the sector is still struggling to recover from the impact of Covid-19, which shuttered many hotels and had an outsized negative impact on small business owners in tourism and hospitality. Despite support from the government and financial institutions in a bid to keep these businesses afloat during the pandemic, it is expected the tourism sector will take time to rebalance, with a multiyear recovery to 2019 levels.

In addition, Covid-19 radically changed consumer behaviour. Digital connectivity and transformation accelerated rapidly during the pandemic due to successive lockdowns in many countries. Even prior to Covid-19, tourism services were gravitating to a digital-first model, with technology-driven platforms such as AirBnB and Booking.com, among others, changing the structure of the industry by altering barriers to entry, facilitating price comparisons and transforming distribution channels through the internet.

As a result, digital skills such as online marketing and communication, social media management and data analytics are becoming increasingly important to the sector and its employees. However, there is a significant gap in SA between supply and demand for current and future skill levels in these skills.

For small businesses, particularly, to capitalise on and help drive the promise tourism and hospitality holds, they first must be in the game. This means having a website, with tagged content, to be visible, connecting to and integrating their systems with booking aggregator sites, creating apps to improve the user experience of travellers, managing logistics, ensuring cybersecurity and data protection and analysing customer behaviour to maximise return visits and traveller satisfaction.

Given the acceleration in the use of and demand for digital skills, small businesses increasingly need the same digital skills as, for example a multinational professional services firm – but on a fraction of a budget. The tourism industry can collaborate with small operators to create shared solutions to this challenge.

But the primary issue remains the shortage of digital skills in SA. By equipping young South Africans with digital literacy, coding, data analysis and other technical competencies, SA can enhance their employability, promote entrepreneurship and unlock the potential of the sector in an increasingly digital world. Developing this pipeline of digital skills is essential to creating new job opportunities and boosting economic growth and competitiveness.

As a not-for-profit company mandated to develop and manage a national digital skills strategy, The Collective X believes a collaborate approach to this challenge is essential to radically boosting the supply of quality digital skills in the economy and increasing employment opportunities for the country’s unemployed youth.

The Collective X is part of an initiative being driven by Business Unity SA and Business Leadership SA , in partnership with the government, to explore opportunities within the private sector to significantly scale employment for excluded youth, even within the context of constrained economic growth.

Over the past 36 months, we have mobilised operators to support this objective in several of SA’s key economic sectors, while collaborating with the government through the inter-departmental coordinating committee for digital skills to unblock the barriers to developing the digital skills SA so urgently needs. 

We aim to transform SA’s digital landscape and bridge the gap between the supply and demand of digital skills through a national partner network of digital skills training providers, employers seeking digital skills, policymakers, technology vendors and education providers. The goal is to deliver the right training at the right time for the right price, to impact SA’s future in the right way.

The use of digital technology is one of the key strategies tourism and hospitality can leverage to speed the revitalisation of the sector. Despite the pandemic, small businesses in this sector can recover and thrive if they build resilience, adapt to the new normal and position themselves for success in a digital future.

• Searle is a member of The Collective-X focusing on government relations and fostering partnerships for digital skills development