The tourism industry’s capacity to generate jobs is far from having been reached although it created more than 1-million last year. And more jobs can be created if tourism’s value as a sustainable source of permanent work, income generation and social integration was properly understand, according to CEO of Pan-African Holdings Iraj Abedian.

South African Tourism figures show that more than 8.4-million people visited the country last year; further the rate of increase of foreign arrivals was, at 13.9%, three times the global average. In strictly monetary terms, these foreign arrivals contributed around R222-billion to the local economy between 2003 and 2006, while revenue from tourism jumped 9.6% between 2005 and 2006.

Abedian said there were several ways SA could improve its dealings with tourists. These include attention to security at hotels and surrounding areas and increasing the number of staff helping visitors at airports.

He pointed out that the country had an advantage over competitor regions in that it did not rely entirely on foreign tourism – last year the domestic component added R16.5-billion to the economy.