In an opening speech delivered at a two-day tourism conference that ended on Friday, Van Schalkwyk said South Africa needed to improve and expand its public transportation networks and sharpen its tourism and hospitality skills ahead of the world's greatest sporting showpiece - which is expected to inject an extra R21.3 billion to the economy.

"Clearly we must address a number of serious challenges, ranging from public transport and other tourism infrastructure needs to a skills gap made more serious by the fact that industry argues our educational institutions are not producing graduates with the necessary skills," said Van Schalkwyk.

While he appeared to be concerned about bed shortages, other industry experts believed that South Africa would be able to host the 2010 World Cup with existing accommodation.

In June this year, Gillian Saunders, a principal at accounting firm Grant Thornton, said she expected the tourism industry to be cautious in building new hotels and lodges, because the demand for accommodation would drop after the event.

"We have to be careful. You cannot build a hotel for a 33-day event," Saunders warned at the time."

As far as tourism accommodation is concerned, we are going to cope well with the existing stock that we have. But I cannot say the same about the transport sector."

To ease public transport concerns, the Gauteng province government in July awarded the Bombela consortium, which includes JSE-listed construction firm Murray & Roberts, the tender to build the Gautrain project, a high-speed passenger train service.

The train will connect Johannesburg International Airport and the cities of Johannesburg and Pretoria, and is expected to be operational by 2009. The train will reduce traffic congestion in Gauteng, the province that will host the bulk of the 2010 World Cup matches.

Van Schalkwyk said his department and the local tourism industry aimed to attract about 10 million foreign visitors to come to South Africa by 2010. An estimated 6.7 million foreign tourists visited the country last year.

During the first quarter of this year, nearly 1.8 million tourists arrived in the country and spent about R12.9 billion.

Van Schalkwyk also announced a new marketing campaign aimed at increasing South Africa's share of the global business tourism market. Business tourism contributes roughly R20 billion to the economy, and South Africa is ranked as the 28th most popular global business tourism destination.

"To ensure that we break into the list of the top 20 destinations by 2007, we will be launching a new business tourism campaign in Amsterdam on November 1 to industry and business leaders, with a London launch two days later and an Asian and American roll-out in the new year," Van Schalkwyk said.

The tourism sector contributes about 9 percent to the economy and supports more than 1.1 million jobs.

Source: Business Report