South Africa is the fifty-third most competitive travel and tourism destination in the world, according to the World Economic Forum’s (WEF’s) ‘Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report 2017’, released on April 5.

The Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index, or TTCI, which consists of four subindexes, was first published in 2007, but, since 2009, it has only been published every second year.

So, is fifty-third place good or bad? Well, as any economist worth his or her salt would respond, it depends – among other factors, on your definition of ‘good’ and ‘bad’. But before you get sidetracked in attempting an assessment simply based on a single figure, you need to consider a few facts.

The facts are as follows: South Africa placed fifty-third out of 136 countries. This is its second-best performance, the best being in 2015, when it placed forty-eighth. So, South Africa dropped five places in the latest survey. Prior to 2015, South Africa placed sixty- second in 2007, sixtieth in 2008, sixty-first in 2009, sixty-sixth in 2011 and sixty-fourth in 2013. In sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa places first ahead of Mauritius (fifty-fifth), Kenya (eightieth) and Namibia (eighty-second). South Africa and Mauritius did engage in some musical chairs in past reports.

Want to venture a guess as to the countries that placed in the top 10 in 2017? Since a few countries played musical chairs from their 2015 position, their movements are reflected in brackets. Spain is the most competitive travel and tourism destination in the world, followed by France, Germany, Japan (which gained five places), the UK, the US (which dropped two places), Australia, Italy, Canada (which gained one place) and Switzerland (which dropped four places). As a consequence, Europe and Eurasia is once again the region with the strongest overall performance, with six countries featuring in the top ten. This, as the report explains, is due to the region’s cultural richness, excellent tourism service infrastructure, international openness and perceived safety – the last mentioned despite slightly declining security realities and perceptions in Western and Southern Europe.

The Americas is the macroregion with the second most improved performance at the aggregate level, with the US placing sixth, Canada ninth, Mexico twenty-second and Brazil twenty-seventh, while the Asia-Pacific region accounts for five of the 15 most improved countries, namely Japan (fourth), South Korea (nineteenth), India (fortieth), Vietnam (sixty-seventh) and Bhutan (seventy- eighth). With the exception of Japan and South Korea, the Asia-Pacific region is most comparable to sub-Saharan Africa.

This is all fine and well, but what do we know about South Africa’s competitiveness, or the lack thereof? What follows will provide you with some insights (but it is by no means an in-depth analysis, nor is the intention to provide one; rather it merely highlights perceived issues of praise and concern). Most of this should not be too surprising, but then there are a few that really surprised me, and might well surprise you too.

The TTCI consists of four subindexes, namely Enabling Environment; Travel and Tourism Policy and Enabling Conditions; Infrastructure; and Natural and Cultural Resources.

The top five issues of praise are the ‘cost to start a business’, which is placed fourth; ‘country brand strategy’ (fifth); ‘quality of tourism infrastructure’ (sixth); ‘attractiveness of natural assets’ (sixth); and ‘hotel price index’ (eighth).

The top five issues of concern are ‘HIV prevalence as a percentage of the adult population’, which is placed 134th; ‘business costs of crime’ (131st); ‘homicide rate per 100 000 population’ (131st); ‘travel and tourism government expenditure as a percentage of government budget’ (130th); and ‘time to start a business in days’ (123rd).

The ‘enabling environment’ subindex placed 92nd, owing to ‘business environment’ (21st), ‘cost to start a business as a percentage of gross national income per capita’ (4th); ‘efficiency of legal framework in settling disputes’ (9th); ‘time to start a business in days’ (123rd); ‘profit tax rate percentage profits’ (103rd); ‘safety and security’ (120th); ‘business costs of crime’ (131st); ‘reliability of police services’ (113th); ‘homicide rate per 100 000 of the population’ (131st); ‘health and hygiene’ (113th); ‘HIV prevalence as a percentage of the adult population’ (134th); ‘malaria incidence cases per 100 000 of the population’ (93rd); ‘human resources and labour’ (63rd); ‘labour market’ (118th); ‘information and communication technology readiness’ (68th); ‘Internet users as a percentage of the population’ (74th); ‘fixed-broadband Internet subscriptions per 100 000 of the population’ (98th); and ‘quality of electricity supply’ (111th).

The ‘travel and tourism policy and enabling conditions’ subindex placed 97th, owing to ‘prioritisation of travel and tourism’ (59th); ‘travel and tourism government expenditure as a percentage of government budget’ (130th); ‘country brand strategy rating’ (5th); ‘international openness’ (110th); ‘visa requirements’ (71st); ‘openness of bilateral air service agreements’ (54th); ‘number of regional trade agreements in force’ (91st); ‘price competi- tiveness’ (43rd); ‘ticket taxes and airport charges’ (80th); ‘hotel price index in US dollars’ (8th); ‘purchasing power parity in US dollars’ (61st); ‘fuel price levels’ (71st); and ‘environmental sustainability’ (117th).

The ‘infrastructure’ subindex placed 55th, owing to ‘air transport infrastructure’ (46th); ‘quality of air transport infrastructure’ (10th); ‘ground and port infrastructure’ (59th); ‘paved road density percentage total territorial area’ (91st); ‘tourist service infrastructure’ (59th); and ‘quality of tourism infrastructure’ (6th).

The ‘natural and cultural resources’ sub- index placed 18th, owing to ‘natural resources’ (23rd); ‘attractiveness of natural assets’ (6th); ‘cultural resources and business travel’ (19th); and ‘sports stadiums – number of large stadiums’ (13th).

It is quite obvious that there are a number of issues that work against one another. Simply having attractive natural assets and low hotel prices is not enough to attract tourists and travellers if there is crime and government does not invest in tourism promotion. It should be borne in mind that South Africa is a long-haul destination, which implies expensive travel costs.