Eswatini Prime Minister Russell M. Dlamini has called for a major rethink of the country’s tourism industry, urging greater intolerance of outdated systems, bottlenecks and barriers that limit growth and weaken the sector’s competitiveness.
According to a post on the official government handle, the PM was who speaking at the 2nd annual Tourism Nkwe Indaba in Mbabane , outlined how disruptive leadership could help transform the tourism sector, pointing to key bottlenecks that need to be addressed to maximise the industry’s contribution to the economy.
“Government’s commitment to the Nkwe Programme of Action & the Grand Plan that now takes clearer shape, remains undiminished. Our target of double-digit GDP growth has not changed & neither has our conviction that tourism must be one of the engines that carries us there.”
“I have not been shy about the fact that some have called my approach “disruptive leadership.” I embrace that without apology. Disruption is not disorder – it is the refusal to let outdated systems, slow processes and comfortable habits stand in the way of emaSwati.”
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“Where a system serves only itself & not the people, it must be disrupted. Where a process protects inefficiency rather than the traveller, the investor or the small entrepreneur, it must be disrupted. This is the spirit we bring to the work still before us in this sector.”
“Our e-visa platform has done much to modernise how visitors reach us, but Government is aware – because industry has told us plainly – that reliability, payment processing and turnaround times have not always matched the ambition behind the system.”
“We hear the concerns raised about processing delays around peak periods such as Umhlanga, about payment failures, and about the absence of a manual fallback while the platform is refined.”
“I want to be direct: a visa system that frustrates the very visitors we are courting is a contradiction we cannot sustain, and Government is committed to resolving it with urgency, not indefinite patience.”
“Similarly, as we build our Tourism Satellite Account, we must be honest about the numbers we present to the nation.”
“If our data does not yet fully capture the informal & small-operator, then our narrative of “growth” risks obscuring the real conditions faced by those who work in it. Disruptive leadership demands that we fix the measurement before we celebrate the milestone.”
“The same principle applies to how people & visitors move around. E-hailing services & 7-seater vehicles have become part of how tourism actually functions, yet our regulatory framework has lagged behind that reality. And it applies to how money moves through this sector.
“And it applies to how money moves through this sector the Eswatini Payment Switch represents exactly the kind of structural change I mean when I speak of disruption: Fast Payments, Open Banking & Card, POS & ATM Switching still to come.”
“Eswatini’s tourism potential remains what it has always been – our culture, our landscapes, our heritage, our people’s warmth. What has to change is our tolerance for the systems that stand between that potential and its realisation.”
