Artificial intelligence could help the Eastern Cape overcome one of its biggest tourism challenges — getting more international visitors to discover the province and stay longer.
Tourism industry leaders and government officials used the provincial launch of Tourism Month 2026 at Asante Estate outside KuGompo City on Tuesday to argue that better use of AI and digital technology could help close the gap between the Eastern Cape’s natural attractions and its relatively small share of international tourists.
The province boasts seven of SA’s nine biomes, with several converging around Port Alfred, while conservation land has expanded from virtually nothing a century ago to more than 450,000ha.
Yet the Eastern Cape attracts only about 3% to 4% of international visitors to SA, while about 76% head to either Cape Town or the Kruger National Park.
Chris Roberts, who operates five-star properties Oceana and Prana Lodge and heads the Wild Eastern Cape initiative, said technology offered the province an opportunity to improve its visibility internationally.
“From a tourism point of view, I’d put the impact of AI in these simple terms — the travel agent used to be a person, then it was Google and the OTAs, now increasingly it is a machine that reads your websites and decides whether it wants to mention you at all,” Roberts said.
“And this is where we need to leverage as a province.
“It’s the easiest way for us to get our story out to the world, to grow visitor numbers and, in turn, to grow jobs and investment.”
Roberts said optimising his properties’ websites so that AI systems could better read and interpret their content had transformed web traffic within six months.
AI-generated referrals now accounted for more than 10% of monthly website visitors — about 1,000 potential guests per property — and produced the properties’ highest conversion rate, he said.
He warned that tourism businesses which failed to structure their online content so that large language models could understand it risked being overlooked or inaccurately represented by AI systems.
Roberts also called for tourism operators across the province to collaborate on linked itineraries aimed at extending average stays from two or three nights to a week.
While acknowledging concerns about AI replacing jobs, he said tourism remained dependent on human interaction and that automation could instead free staff from repetitive administrative work.
“A reservationist who spends most of her day typing the same email over and over is not doing the thing she is actually good at,” Roberts said.
“Take that work away, and you don’t have a redundancy, you have someone who can spend her day selling the province, building itineraries, and turning a three-night booking into a seven-night one.”
Economic development, environmental affairs and tourism MEC Nonkqubela Pieters said greater digital access also had to translate into economic opportunities for rural and coastal communities.
“For many travellers, the first entrance to a destination is no longer a physical gate or a tourism office. It is a mobile phone,” Pieters said.
“When a visitor enters a tourism establishment, the economic value should travel further than the reception desk.
“It should reach the people who prepare meals, maintain rooms, transport guests, guide experiences and supply goods.”
Pieters said the government had a role to play in helping emerging small, medium and micro enterprises overcome barriers, including poor connectivity, limited access to hardware and a lack of digital skills.
“Artificial intelligence cannot replace the knowledge of a local guide, the creativity of an artist or the warmth of genuine hospitality,” she said.
“It should strengthen what people offer rather than remove people from the experience.”
The launch also featured local businesses, including Mdantsane-based luxury leather-and-wood brand Goldspoon Crafts, founded by Sibulele Ntobela and co-run by Yondela Sombalo, and community skills development enterprise BuTibo Consulting, run by Nonyebo Sibaya.
Daily Dispatch
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