South Africa Tourism has appointed Thekiso Rakolojane to lead the organisation’s destination marketing efforts and to expand strategic business partnerships in Ghana and Nigeria.
“The West African markets are critical to us being able to achieve the goal of 5 million tourist arrivals by 2021 because the potential to grow the region is significant enough to make a big impact to South Africa’s tourism results,” says Sthembiso Dlamini, Chief Operating Officer at South African Tourism.
Growth in tourist arrivals means a better performing economy and increased job creation. In South Arica, 1.5 million jobs were supported by travel and tourism in 2017, which is 9.5 per cent of the total employment in the country. The total contribution
of travel and tourism to South Africa’s GDP was R412.5bn (8.9 per cent of GDP) in 2017 and is forecast to rise by 2.9 per cent in 2018. Rakolojane takes over from Hloni Pitso who has since been appointed as head of SA Tourism’s South Europe Hub. Rakolojane brings 18 years worth brand management experience to his new role and will call upon his tourism industry knowledge to ensure market excellence.
Leave a Reply