SA Tourism’s focus is off track

Those of us in the northern parts of the country get irked when we hear Cape people strutting around as though their province is God’s gift to tourism.

True, they have a stunning mountain, beautiful beaches (although accompanied by sea temperatures which would freeze the whats-its off a brass monkey) and, of course, they have endless wine.

But they don’t have what we do – proper bushveld and the Big Five (note to Cape Town people: a dassie is not wildlife).

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Kruger National Park and its adjacent private reserves, as well as Madikwe and Pilanesberg would, we believe, ensure that any foreigner wanting to experience Real Africa would not miss out on our area. But… not so fast.

As we report in our Travel supplement today, Cape Town has just done a marketing deal with Victoria Falls. Now, the prospect is that foreigners will fly in there, experience wildlife in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia or Botswana and fly direct to Cape Town from the showpiece Victoria Falls International Airport.

The wildlife experiences in those countries are as good as we can offer… so foreign tourists might soon be excluding northern South Africa from their itineraries.

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Additionally, there is the reality that the place many of us up here consider the real capital of SA, Johannesburg, is hardly an inviting place for foreigners on a maiden visit to our country.

It’s a vibey place to be sure, but also a dirty, crowded city where things don’t always work and crime is a constant, malign presence.

All of this adds up to a possible existential threat to the high-end tourism, which generates mega-amounts of foreign currency – and creates thousands of jobs – in our part of the country.

This is what SA Tourism should be concerning itself with, rather than spending R1 billion to sponsor a foreign football team.

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