Tourism BEE Charter Council released the first base-line research released at the end of 2006 which suggests that as an industry we are making good strides in transforming the industry in some areas, but that in others we still have a long-way to go.

Of particular concern is the industry's woeful employment of handicapped people (less than 1%), and the still low level of black management in our businesses (22%). Skills development and Black Enterprise development are also areas which need a lot more involvement from the industry if we are to achieve meaningful transformation for the sector.

We continue to urge our members and the industry in general to really engage with the scorecard which we developed together. The BEE Charter Council are available to come to your business to provide insight, guidance and assistance with all aspects of the scorecard, and their new web-site has a number of user-friendly tools to assist every business with this fundamental business requirement.

We also cannot stress enough how important it is to share your results with the BEE Council. Many of our members have excellent transformation stories, models and approaches to share, and the more we can jointly see the benefits, the easier it will be to achieve our agreed milestones.