Abolish the Department of Tourism
Tourism is a spontaneous industry based on true human sentiment that can’t be pushed and shoved by government dictates. A famous travel influencer has far more effect on our tourism than De Lille.
South Africa suffers from an intense bloat of government departments, ruled over by a host of overpaid ministers and employing thousands of inefficient, often unnecessary staff whose true purpose is just being a cog in a graft machine. Most of these departments are useless or redundant.
The Free Market Foundation (FMF) has rightly suggested that the number of ministries should be cut down from 31 to 10. This number has changed to 32 since 2024. Despite promises by President Cyril Ramaphosa to cut down the size of the cabinet, he has only kept it growing.
On top of cutting down these ministries, we need to take a long hard look at the 40 national departments and agencies draining the fiscus.
For this article, I want to focus on abolishing the Department of Tourism, currently ruled over by Minister Patricia de Lille.
De Lille is famous for harassing residents at their homes rather than focusing on the root cause of Cape Town’s water crisis in 2017. She has managed to stay politically relevant through founding GOOD and shoving herself into the Government of National Unity (GNU), despite her party only winning 1 seat in the National Assembly.
The Department of Tourism’s official role is, succinctly, to manage and administrate affairs relating to tourism in South Africa. Through its subsidiary, SA Tourism, it is meant to market South Africa as a destination to tourists.
The Department controls a R7.5 billion budget. Not a measly amount. But like many government initiatives, this money is mostly wasted.
In August 2025, De Lille dissolved the board of SA Tourism after it suspended CEO Nombulelo Guliwe for violating labour processes, attempting to remove executives without consultation, and after auditors flagged a R4.1 million irregular prepayment.
De Lille defended the very likely corrupt CEO, garnering criticism from civil society.
This is not the first time that SA Tourism and the Department of Tourism has been scrutinised for corruption.
In 2024, the Auditor-General reported R104 million in wasteful spending on delayed projects. Oaks Lodge, a Department project, had its budget balloon by 183%. There has also been controversy over a R175 million Tourism Monitors Programme (TMP), which aims to employ young people to be safety officers at tourist sites – effectively just a fancier security guard with ballooned costs.
The TMP has been wracked with tender abuse, with Thembanathi Group winning the tender at Ezemvelo Nature Reserve, only for the tender to be changed to a rival.
While the Department itself apparently has a clean audit, SA Tourism is its direct subsidiary and has a less than stellar record. R1 billion was wasted on an “invalid and unlawful” deal with Tottenham Hotspurs in 2023.
But even if the Department was not spending wildly and harbouring corruption and mismanagement, we still need to ask the question: why does it even exist?
In essence, the job of the Department is to attract tourists to South Africa and to ensure they are spending money. But already, there are flaws in this.
The overall safety and prestige of South Africa is far more likely to attract tourists than a state-sponsored marketing department. SA Tourism can create as many flyers as it wants or pay for as many vanity ads as it can afford with its bloated budget, but it won’t truly shift South Africa’s global image.
The real face of South African tourism are our hotels, our resorts, our tour operators, restaurants and businesses. Private sector institutions. They are the beneficiaries of tourism and are the most likely to attract tourists. That is, when it isn’t the natural beauty of this country attracting tourists. Something that the Department can’t claim credit for either.
Where government does have a role in promoting and retaining tourism, the Department is still irrelevant or redundant.
Security is the job of the police. Infrastructure falls under Public Works and Infrastructure (DPWI). Home Affairs (DHA) oversees visas and manages access to the country. And International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) dictates our global image regardless of how much money SA Tourism puts into social media ads.
The overall task of the Department of Tourism seems to just be to set a guiding plan that isn’t going to be followed, and to formulate costly projects that should rather fall under the purview of the private sector.
Tourism is an industry. A spontaneous industry based on true human sentiment that can’t be pushed and shoved by government dictates. A famous travel influencer has far more effect on our tourism than De Lille.
Abolishing the Department of Tourism could save the country billions, while removing a redundant and mostly irrelevant department. Functions like organising bilateral tourism agreements can be folded into other departments, like DIRCO. But there is no need for a government coordinator of tourism. If the industry wants to organise, it can do so. And already does so. All that the Department accomplishes now is lining a lot of officials’ pockets with far too much money.
Nicholas Woode-Smith is the Managing Editor of the Rational Standard. He is a senior associate of the Free Market Foundation and writes in his personal capacity.