The 2020 National Tourism Sector Strategy (NTSS) recognises research as one of the key success factors for sustainable competitiveness in destination management and emphasises the important role research plays to guide planning and decision making. The strategy highlights the need to build partnerships and collaboration in order to strengthen the context, use and dissemination of research findings to inform policy and decision making. It is on this basis that the Department of Tourism strives to collaborate with universities and research institutions to conduct tourism research. The Department has prioritised the following research themes and works South African public universities and research institutions to undertake research in this areas:
- Transformation and Tourism Value Chain
- Revolutionising Domestic Tourism
- Tourism and transport interface
- Tourism Safety
- Tourism and Technological Innovation
- Tourism Sector Demand and Supply
To ensure continuous engagement with stakeholders on research matters in the sector, on an annual basis the Department host the Tourism Research Seminar. The Research Seminar aims to disseminate research findings to key stakeholders in sector, thereby ensuring that research recommendations are implemented, and translated into policy and practice. As such, the research seminar is an interactive platform that brings together researchers, tourism practitioners, sector stakeholders, academics and other relevant stakeholders for knowledge sharing and exchange of ideas fin order to improve policy and decision making. In addition, an exhibition of research posters of projects undertaken by postgraduate students financially supported by the Department is also held. The students are therefore able to gather feedback and suggestions from stakeholders in order to improve their research projects.
To date, the Department has hosted seven (7) research seminars (from 2013 to 2019). The previous seminars succeeded in bringing together researchers, sector stakeholders, academics and other relevant government departments to network with peers and share ideas and best practices.
The details of the next Seminar can be found on:
https://www.tourism.gov.za/CurrentProjects/8th_Annual_Tourism_Research_Seminar/Pages/8th_Annual_Tourism_Research_Seminar.aspx