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Tourism Financing2025-03-14T11:29:57+02:00

funding your adventure business

invest in infrastructure, facilities & equipment to make your adventure business or concession unforgettable

funding your general expansion

structured financing for expansion of accommodation, vehicle fleet, infrastructure or adding to your value chain
preferably, niche or concession locations

funding your traveller transfer/tour fleet

expand your vehicle fleet and enhance your guests’ tour/transfer experience

how Spartan helps the tourism industry?

  • We have over 42-years experience financing SMEs across South Africa
  • First, we understand you & your business
  • We provide structured financing for short & long term, covering your growth phases

We focus on established & experienced entrepreneurs … this is who we finance.

Our minimum finance amount is R1M and upwards. Some of our finance facilities can be structured with multiple phases &/or as revolving facilities, where appropriate.

Spartan’s backing of the tourism sector …

South Africa has always been a vibrant and stunning country, and our tourism sector reflects this, providing compelling opportunities to SMEs looking to make their mark in the industry.

  • However, continued development and maintaining your unique flavour, requires that you have sufficient working capital and/or capex
  • And getting the funding, even for a Concessionaire, can be difficult
  • This is often a barrier to executing these projects

This is where Spartan comes in: we understand your space, we understand your challenges – and then structure funding to support your growth in the tourism sector.

specialist in 

funding the tourism sector

Funding your adventure business

Adventure activities are a significant attraction and represent a growth opportunity within the tourism sector. Offerings like zip lining, cable car tours, ballooning, helicopter tours & boat cruises can be a valuable investment.

  1. often these investments are quite large – triggering the need for structured capex and/or working capital funding
  2. these projects or Concessions are difficult to assess for traditional funders – requiring a funder that understands the sector, desires to see the sector grow and has the capacity & commitment to assess

This is where Spartan comes in: we understand this space, we understand these challenges – and structure the funding to support your growth as an entrepreneur or Concessionaire in the tourism sector.

Funding your expansions

Achieving growth and providing your customer with a quality experience, can have its hurdles. Like getting funding to …

  1. Expand existing or new sites
  2. Expand facilities & infrastructure
  3. Open a new concession-based location

Spartan’s specialised process gives you an opportunity to engage with us in-person as we get to know your business and partner with you in your projects.

Preferably, niche/Concession locations

Funding your traveler transfer/tour fleet

An integral part of your tourism business is the transfer of your guests, usually requiring a fleet of vehicles.

Expanding your fleet 1 vehicle at a time – is restrictive as securing sufficient funding can be difficult.

Spartan’s answer is our specialised experience in funding SMEs in South Africa, and our unique lending process that backs your business growth and moves you swiftly from application-to-payout.

SATSA’s approach to industry growth …

SATSA represents the private sector trade associations in five SADC countries. Their mission is to support the sustainable growth of travel and tourism to and within Southern Africa.

SATSA’s partnership with Spartan reflects their commitment to strengthening the tourism sector by fostering collaborations that crate tangible benefits for its members. By providing direct access to tailored funding solutions, SATSA is ensuring that SMEs have the tools they need to thrive in a competitive environment.

the unified voice 

of the inbound tourism industry in Southern Africa

How it works ..?

Timelines

Move swiftly from Application-to-Payout

These are the steps/stages that drive our overall timeline:

  • Application Stage: we actively reach out to you, and request all required documents. Once received you move on to the next stage
  • Assessment Stage: a Credit Analyst meticulously assesses your application
  • Interview Stage: our Credit Committee interviews you
  • Implementation Stage: signing contracts & fulfilling approval conditions. You sign, we action
  • Pay-Out Stage: shortly after the Implementation Stage is completed

We work together to make this process as fast as possible.

Assessment

Credit Analyst engages & asseses > the Credit Committee interviews you

Once we have your application and all supporting docs a Credit Analyst reviews this and will either ask for additional docs (when required) or will arrange for a Credit Interview where you meet directly with our Credit Committee. It’s here that rubber really meets the road.

We don’t ask for business plans as we believe that by making the effort and time to understand you and your business we are in a better position to make a credit decision. In this interview we really get to understand how your business works, its strengths, challenges and if our finance can help it grow.

Pay-Out

After Term Sheet; Agreements; Conditions met

Based on a signed & completed term sheet and our compliance team having checked that all the paperwork is good-to-go… we expedite the pay-out process.

Contact us …

complete this quick form and we’ll get right back to you …

A few FAQs …

We strictly focus on established & experienced entrepreneurs … this is who we finance.

Our minimum finance amount is R1M and upwards. Some of our finance facilities can be structured with multiple phases &/or as revolving facilities, where appropriate.

Depending on your unique situation, Spartan can help by crafting a finance option tailored to your exact requirements and needs.

Such as:

Our minimum finance amount is R1M and upwards. Some of our finance facilities can be structured with multiple phases &/or as revolving facilities, where appropriate.

  • Bridging Finance: 1-3 months
  • Working Capital Finance: 1-3 months or 6-12 months
  • Growth Finance: 12-60 months
  • Specialised Asset Finance: 12-60 months

Our application process is designed to get you from application-to-payout swiftly. We work together to make that possible. We can only move as fast as you.

  • we focus exclusively on South African SME’s
  • if your business is based in South Africa but also operates outside of South Africa then we may be able to finance you

Spartan is strictly focused on Small & Growing Businesses … this is who we finance. We’re 100% committed to only helping SMEs grow. It’s in our DNA. It’s in our processes. It’s in the way we engage.

We believe we can make a greater impact by financing Small & Growing Businesses. They are defined as commercially viable businesses that have significant potential for growth.

  • Spartan finances in a no/low collateral context, with an approx 5-10 day turnaround
  • therefore we supplement your bank rather than substitute it
  • our pricing is relative to the above
  • however, against usual secured overdraft rates – our costing is reasonable

  • we adopt a structured/customised approach to funding SMEs
  • we supplement a bank we do not substitute a bank
  • this means our clients utilise the banks for their traditional/vanilla finance needs & Spartan supplements this for their specialised/growth needs
  • your bank will typically require a higher degree & higher quality of collateral where Spartan as an alternative funder focuses more on backing an entrepreneur
  • Spartan’s application process is geared towards specialised & complex funding needs

Documents we require include:

  • online or offline finance application
  • historical financial information (for Spartan to assess business retrospectively) – this includes AFS/Management accounts and Bank account details/statements
  • business owners personal assets – we do secured and unsecured lending, this helps us with our risk mitigation

Why no business plan? We believe in meeting with the entrepreneur in order to understand the business holistically – from their perspective.

  • With Spartan you can sign all our docs online, on your mobile – wherever you are in the world
  • It is completely safe and legal
  • We make use of a top tier service that enables quick, easy and safe e-signing
  • find out more about our e-signing safety here
  • find out how to e-sign here

  • we define collateral as a tangible asset, with a liquid, secondary market [e.g. property]
  • we define security as a legal instrument that provides some comfort [e.g. cession of debtors]
  • depending on the nature and context of the financing required we will often require some form of collateral/security however
  • as an alternative financier we also try to give consideration to the needs of the business and its context
  • in certain cases security/collateral can take forms more relevant to purchase orders and contracts

Whilst we finance Small & Growing Businesses across all industries – we find that the businesses in the following segments tend to get significant benefit from our niche finance offerings:

  • manufacturing
  • construction
  • engineering
  • tech businesses
  • tourism
  • education
  • healthcare
  • business services
  • professional services firms
  • project related businesses
  • contract related businesses
  • digital media
  • agribusiness

It’s both our philosophy & policy not to finance businesses that negatively impact People and Planet.

  • Production or trade in any product or activity deemed illegal under host country laws or regulations or international conventions and agreements, or subject to international bans, such as pharmaceuticals, pesticides/herbicides, ozone depleting substances, PCB’s, wildlife or products regulated under CITES.
  • Production or trade in weapons and munitions.
  • Production or trade in alcoholic beverages (excluding beer and wine) (Primary).
  • Production or trade in tobacco (Primary).
  • Gambling, casinos and equivalent enterprises (Primary).
  • Production or trade in radioactive materials.
  • Production or trade in unbounded asbestos fibres.
  • Drift net fishing in the marine environment using nets in excess of 2.5 km. in length.
  • Production or activities involving harmful or exploitative forms of forced labour/harmful child labour.
  • Commercial logging operations for use in primary tropical moist forest.
  • Production or trade in wood or other forestry products other than from sustainably managed forests.
  • Industries related to pornography

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