MATHEMATICS
SOLUTIONS
TO BOOST TOURISM NUMBERS
Numbers in tourism translate into revenue for the sector. Mathematicians are now number-crunching creatively to solve tourism challenges. REFILWE MABULA
S
outh Africa has a healthy tourism industry that contributes significantly to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), but the Covid-19 pandemic has had dire financial consequences for the sector and led to substantial job losses. The travel ban imposed in March 2020 as part of the government’s lockdown measures led to a massive decline in tourism activities. International and interprovincial travel was prohibited to curb the spread of the virus, which adversely affected the tourism sector’s revenue. Statistics South Africa says that the tourism sector contributed R130.1 billion to GDP and 4.5% of total employment in 2018. Due to the pandemic, the number of tourists plunged from 10.2 million in 2019 to 2.8 million in 2020. Although travel restrictions have started to ease in 2021, the sector is battling to recover. It may seem an unlikely solution, but a group of maths wizards are using their skills to tackle South Africa’s tourism challenges. The wizards convened in February 2021 at the annual Mathematics in Industry Group (MISG) hosted by the School of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics at Wits. The MISG is a five-day workshop where leading applied mathematicians and graduate students work collaboratively with representatives from industry on research problems. This year, four problems were submitted of which two related to the problems affecting the tourism sector.
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SPECIALISED PACKAGES FOR DOMESTIC TOURISM As the lockdown levels eased towards the end of 2020, the Minister of Tourism Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane re-opened tourism activities in a quest to save jobs and to restore economic activity. But foreign travel was still curtailed and domestic tourism uptake has been low. Dr Precious Shabalala from the University of Mpumalanga submitted the problem of low domestic tourism in Mpumalanga, which relies on tourists from other provinces. The MISG group members, Mathew Aibinu, Keegan Anderson, Kesaobaka Moipolai, Beaullah Mugwangwavari, Zachary Njuguna and Patrick Tchepmo investigated how customised packages of tourism products and services could be used to attract the domestic market. Using eight industries that support the tourism sector as variables, the group took a generalist approach to solve the problem of encouraging domestic tourism and creating value for money. “We asked the question: What would encourage a local person to be a domestic tourist? This question is more specifically aimed at touring within their own province rather than visiting another province,” said the group members. However, the solution could be applicable to other provinces, which is why the group took a generalist approach. The group made use of mathematical modelling to build
