'Give us what you've got', says frustrated department

WHILE Statistics South Africa continues to commit to producing "timely statistics" - and the June 1998 arrivals release remains outstanding - the industry as a whole is becoming increasingly frustrated at its lack of delivery. So much so that, according to Anita Soni, acting deputy director-general at the Department of Tourism & Environmental Affairs (DEA&T), it has - in desperation - asked Stats SA to "give it what information is available, in whatever form" and it will try to source and intelligently sort as much relevant information as is possible. "There is no synergy between Stats SA and the Department of Home Affairs at the present time and it is time for the warehousing to stop", said Soni, cognisant of the need to be able to provide timeous statistics, especially in the light of the industry wanting to track the success of the marketing partnership's widely hailed international advertising blitzes. According to Stats SA, the release date for its various tourism stats is wholly dependent on 'close-off' dates supplied by Home Affairs, while it in turn awaits final numbers from tardy border posts. According to Stats SA's Dr Sulaiman Bah, his department 'kept contacting' Home Affairs in December for a close-off date but "we were only notified towards the end of January". As a result, it now seems as if the somewhat historic information might be published on February 17. Soni says that departmental discussions surrounding the provision of future intelligence is "progressing quite well" and a dedicated Research and Development division is to be incorporated under the new, fully fledged tourism branch of the restructured DEA&T. (Elizabeth Sheridan)