I have taken my roles on the various boards very seriously and have had time to reflect on what I believe, needs to be done in order to achieve an independent and credible private sector for tourism. Once this is achieved the definition of the public sectors role in creating the platform for us to deliver should be far more defined.
In no particular order –
• The chairman of the TBCSA should be absolutely independent of any tourism or political influences, and I believe this should be a paid position as it will require a huge amount of focus and time and can no longer be expected to be done pro bono.
• Any board position should come along with an absolute declaration of interests in the sector and related businesses;
• The CEO’s forum should be a stand-alone entity and be the mechanism for feedback between the associations and the TBCSA – the TBCSA should only be one point on this forum’s agenda;
• The TBCSA chairman/CEO should have the absolute right to question and criticize the NDT;
• The NDT should only communicate to the industry through the TBCSA;
• The NTSS has two clear deliveries, one by private sector and one by the public sector -these should not be a combined effort, but a platform should be created for each of these sectors to report back on their efforts to a central co-ordinator that is in a position to comment on these efforts independently and without reprise;
• The board of SA Tourism have no function other than to ‘rubber stamp’ decisions made by the NDT and SAT – I recommend that private sector do not sit on this board as it places them in a precarious position if they have any tourism interests;
• Clear cut associations need to represent their members and we need to move away from duplication of attendance of meetings (this will be better managed if there is a single conduit of information by the TBCSA);
• The NDT is creating an enormous department with an agenda that may not necessarily dove-tail with that of the private sector. This will result in many more ‘million room’ projects which government will expect the private sector to deliver. The KPIs of these government departments should be clearly understood so that the private sector does not spend its time and energy delivering on the jobs of government employees;
• In the coming together to deliver ‘that’ event in 2010, we lost sight of what it was that our specific jobs were and I would encourage everyone in our industry to not only define what it is that they do, but to publicly communicate this to others within the industry.
Please accept this mail in the light it is intended and accept my apologies for the meeting as I have been advised of late that my mindset has made me a little disruptive.
I have had a most remarkable time with some wonderful people and look forward to our future interactions.
Yours sincerely
Brett