1. What is tsi?

tsi is an anti-crime initiative and a victim support programme for the Tourism industry in South Africa.

tsi is a national project of the Tourism Business Council of South Africa (TBCSA), and has Tourism Marketing South Africa (TOMSA) as anchor funder.

2. Why was tsi started?

When the process to set up tsi by the Southern Africa Tourism Services Association (SATSA) began way back in 2006, it was their intention to make this an industry-wide initiative.  The safety and security problems that face us come in cycles, and as an industry we need to be ready to meet all the new ones that arise in an organised and constructive manner.

3. The benefit of tsi

Crime and safety issues and the perception of these overseas, have a negative effect on all of our marketing efforts abroad. They cannot be dealt with by the tourism industry alone and it was necessary to construct a way for the industry to liaise with police and security services as well as disaster management and similar bodies to co-ordinate the efforts of everyone concerned to protect all marketing funds that are spent.

By working together, the industry partners can:

4. How effective is this initiative? What is the response from the industry?

tsi is now a proven concept, and made its contribution to the event-free World Cup. Thus the logical place to house tsi was alongside the TOMSA levy collection process to support national marketing efforts. Last year the TBCSA paid over R100 million of TOMSA money to finance marketing of South Africa as a tourism destination. This is a significant amount of money and it is raised by the private sector in tourism. The use of less than a per cent of this money to fund the activities of tsi without imposing any additional levies on the industry enables the private sector to be taken seriously by government as a significant partner in developing tourism safety and security.

5. Highlights since the start of tsi

tsi played a significant role over the entire period leading up to and during the 2010 Fifa World Cup by enabling the tourism industry and the police services to work together on an on-going and convenient process. The police indicated afterwards that they found it much easier to work with tsi than with hundreds if not thousands of individual members of the tourism industry. tsi was a credible partner for the police with whom they could work quickly and with confidence.

More recently tsi worked with emergency services during the severe floods that affected the Lowveld and in particular the Kruger Park. Because of the co-operation that took place it was possible to make best use of available resources.

tsi also worked with the police services in the Eastern Cape to help them re-organise their manpower to better deal with a developing situation of serious crime around the Addo area.

tsi works on a continuous basis with Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) to better manage safety and security issues around OR Tambo International Airport.

If in doubt whether to request assistance or to report an incident that affected your tourism business, your staff, your clients, or others in the Tourism industry – do contact tsi on e-mail Tourism.Safety@satsa.co.za or 24/7 tel 0861 874 911 or fax 086 686 2057.