THE North West tourism department said that service excellence is one of its major priorities going forward so that the province becomes a destination of choice to visitors.

Tourism department spokesperson, Dineo Lolokwane said that they want to ensure high standards and quality within the sector.

She said that the department recently convened a workshop with product owners in the Bojanala West region and they know what is expected of them.

“We had a robust engagement on issues such as quality assurance, service excellence and grading of various tourism and hospitality establishments. The department will further visit all other districts in the province. We will conduct workshops of such nature to ensure that thus critical factors highly prioritised and taken into considerations.

“All non-graded tourism products in this province are further urged to register for grading assessment in order to be exposed to the basket of benefits available to them through Tourism Grading Council of South Africa (TGCSA),” Lolokwane said.

  Tourism Growth, Development and Transformation chief director, Sarah Manone said the workshop was to enlighten tourism product owners aware of avenues they could explore in enhancing the quality of their service and products.

“These workshops will enhance partnerships with product owners. We encourage service excellence and quality assurance. We will help them in making sure that they improve in how they run their tourism businesses.

“Our department will support the sector and create a conducive condition for a sustainable tourism growth in the province. However we will achieve that through tourism growth, development and transformation within the sector. Tourism plays an integral pillar of the province’s economic growth and sustainability,” Monone said.

She added: “We are doing this because most South Africans are not keen to complain about poor service. Therefore service providers often do not know that their services are not up to the expected standards. Product owners need to develop systems which will encourage clients to give feedback in order to improve the current customer service levels for the better.”

-TDN

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