A public-private venture has been launched, with the aim of providing data to help transform South Africa’s travel and tourism industry.
Jurni will deliver unbiased, consolidated and comprehensive tourism data that will equip tourism businesses with valuable insights to inform their business strategies. At the same time, the company will develop a booking tool that will improve access of small and medium tourism enterprises to the global market as well as a visitor portal that will better showcase the South African tourism product.
“Tourism data and information sources in South Africa are disparate and do not provide intelligence at a granular level to inform South Africa’s travel and tourism sector,” says Dr Nomvuselelo Songelwa, CEO of Jurni. “With the launch of Jurni, existing data sources will be consolidated, as well as digital platforms developed to harness missing data and plug data gaps identified by the tourism sector.
“These data sources will be merged into one comprehensive, consolidated and unbiased tourism data hub for the benefit of the entire tourism sector.”
Digital platforms that will be developed with the tourism sector’s input over the coming months include:
* A mobile-optimised and affordable SMME booking tool that will empower all tourism businesses, including the smaller SMMEs, to access the global market and increase the visibility of South Africa’s ‘hidden’ tourism attractions and establishments
* A visitor app and information portal that will provide travellers to South Africa with a wealth of useful realtime travel information including, among others, GEO-location and mapping of South African experiences, access to a tourist safety tool, a helpline and social media sharing.
The data generated through these new digital platforms will be consolidated with existing data sources into a tourism data hub that will equip South Africa’s tourism businesses with improved insights to inform their business strategies and decision-making, Dr Songelwa explains.
At the Indaba 2019 launch of Jurni, Tourism Minister Derek Hanekom highlighted the importance of tourism data and intelligence in giving the industry insights into every aspect of how South Africa’s tourism sector is performing.
“Through meaningful data, we can monitor changes, make forecasts, devise strategies and policies, determine whether these have been successful, and if we are indeed achieving the goals we set out as a sector,” he says.
“We are raising the level of debate on the importance of tourism as a key economic and social driver. Tourism intelligence, meaningful tourism data that is consolidated into an independent data hub like Jurni, helps us to strengthen this debate. Together, we can exponentially increase the value that tourism brings by collaborating to make tourism work for everyone.”
Jurni is the official rebranding of the National Tourism Visitor Information System (NTVIS) initiative, which was launched by Amadeus IT in conjunction with the South African Department of Tourism and the Thebe Tourism Group at Indaba last year.
The investment by Amadeus was intended to respond to the real needs of South Africa’s travel and tourism industry. As such, the participation of private and public sector in the initiative was key, explains Andy Hedley, MD of Amadeus Southern Africa. “Amadeus felt that an industry alliance including key stakeholders such as South Africa’s Department of Tourism would ensure this overarching goal is met. We are pleased that Jurni also enjoys the support of leading private-sector tourism associations.”