Crime is hurting SA tourism - and we need more empathy, less spin

No one who has been involved in the business of marketing South Africa internationally will convincingly deny that this country has been considered an unsafe tourism destination for more than two decades, certainly even as early as the advent of the new democracy, in the early 1990s.

One of the questions marketers have always had to be prepared to answer from travel media and would be travellers has been the one about possible criminal attacks and general safety in SA. A badly worded reply can make or break travel plans for a traveller considering a trip to SA.

But while safety concerns have not stopped many foreign visitors from choosing South Africa as their next holiday destination, they have prevented many more who could have come from even considering a holiday in South Africa.

A Canadian couple I spoke to, back in Canada, in the late 1990s, told me that it sufficed that South Africa was a long-haul destination with no direct flights from major Canadian cities like Toronto, Montréal, or Vancouver.

"We do not want to travel all the way to your country only to return in body bags," they said bluntly, concluding a long conversation during which I had hoped to persuade them to reconsider. It didn’t help, in those early days, of course, that there were many recently arrived South African immigrants some of whom were the first to discourage Canadians from visiting "dangerous South Africa" with warnings that ended with "we’re from there, we know what we’re talking about".

Such South Africans were, arguably, deemed to be more credible than someone who was paid to promote the country.

Below is the Top 20 Most Visited Countries in the World – 2022. The list does consider the impact of Covid-19 on world travel trends, but perhaps not the effects of the ongoing Russian invasion and war in Ukraine, as well as the deadly Hong Kong human rights and democracy protests.

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COUNTRY

TOURIST NUMBERS

1.?????France - 86.9 million

2.?????Spain - 81.8 million

3.?????USA - 76.9 million

4.?????China - 60.7 million

5.?????Italy - 58.3 million

6.?????Mexico - 39.3 million

7.?????United Kingdom - 37.7 million

8.?????Turkey - 37.6 million

9.?????Germany - 37.5 million

10.??Thailand - 35.4 million

11.??Australia - 28.1 million

12.??Hong Kong - 26.5 million

13.??Malaysia - 25.8 million

14.??Greece - 24.8 million

15.??Russia - 24.6 million

16.??Japan - 24 million

17.??Portugal - 22.8 million

18.??Canada - 21.1 million

19.??Poland - 19.6 million

20.??The Netherlands - 19 million

SOUTH AFRICA - 10.5 million, making it the 3rd most visited country in Africa, following Morocco (12.3 million), and Egypt (11.3 million). It is followed by Tunisia (8.3 million) and Zimbabwe (2.6 million).

A potential jewel

Many visitors to South Africa who end up returning home without having experienced nasty incidents involving crime want to return for another visit. Many end up doing so to experience more of the country, a true "world in one country" (yes, I said it!). They also serve as great "word of mouth" ambassadors for South Africa, as it is impossible to spend time visiting the country and not return home thrilled by the rich experiences, be they human encounters, floral, faunal, cultural, culinary, etc.

The unique beauty of South Africa’s tourist offering lies in the things that many visitors discover once they’re in the country, things that are not always easy to describe in tourist brochures. Such experiences may not serve as the honeypot that attracts visitors to make a first trip to the country, but they often complete the honeypot attractions and create more lasting memories that make people want to return.

I have also known people who came to South Africa as foreign diplomats, or representatives of multinational corporations and other organisations, who opted to remain and continue their lives in South Africa, following the end of their terms/contracts. They’re countless. This should come as no surprise because it is also how South Africa has become a rich cultural, ethnic, and religious kaleidoscope of humanity ever since the first African, European, Middle Eastern and Asian migrants arrived here from other parts of the continent and the world, several centuries ago.?

That trend has not stopped, despite many having left over the years after experiencing criminal violence, directly or indirectly, fearing the impact of destructive race policies, or simply pursuing professional opportunities elsewhere. Many others continue to come and visit South Africa and, for some, to stay on.???

But violence hurts - in more ways than one

We should not be worried about the relatively few who still choose South Africa as a tourist destination but by the millions who could have come over the years and who can still come but choose not to, for fear of possible violent attacks. Going by global tourism numbers, the figures are, arguably, a lot higher. The early 2020 United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) estimates placed international tourist arrival figures at some 1.5 billion people.

This was before the advent of Covid-19, of course, but looking at the Top 20 world tourism destination numbers, there is no reason for South Africa not to attract a lot more tourists than it has managed to date.???

South Africa has everything it takes to be a number one African tourist destination. The main thing that makes it hard for it to attain this position is not distance or costs, but negative perceptions about the country.

Sadly, the number of things feeding such negative perceptions has grown in recent years because of bad leadership of the country. Again, these things might not count for the relatively few tourists who overlook them and travel anyway, but they do matter for the many who choose to skip South Africa – even remove it from their bucket lists – because of them, especially the fear of possible violent attacks.

Furthermore, most visitors from hard currency countries know that once they get to South Africa, they get to live like royalty because of the reach of their currencies in exchange to the South African Rand.

The matter of "violent South Africa" must be approached with empathy for victims and their loved ones, not political spin.

It should also be progressively addressed through credible plans that involve organisations such as SATSA, the Business Tourism Council of South Africa, SAACI, and others.

Government must treat them as the important industry partners that they are when it develops policy and plans, and not as nuisance simply because they ask difficult questions or place hard issues on the table. Race policies must also go, because they can constitute unnecessary obstacles, or weapons used by ministers against many of the well-meaning, established players in the sector.

No one party can, on its own, turn around the image of South Africa as an unsafe tourist destination.?To borrow a much politically abused expression, "All hands must be on deck". ???