Tourism takes a knock with deaths of holidaymakers

Even as Trevor Noah’s new commercial promoting South Africa as a tourism destination was going live overseas, our country’s reputation was taking a battering because of the threat of crime against tourists.

Google South Africa director Alistair Mokoena said on Monday that the search engine has begun removing the route into Nyanga township in Cape Town from its system.

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Not an isolated incident

This after Walter Fischel, an American tourist, was shot in the face and robbed in Nyanga while driving from Cape Town International Airport when his navigation system routed him through there.

Then, the BBC reported this week on the death of British surgeon Dr Kar Hao Teoh, who was shot in Nyanga in front of his wife, mother and young son on 3 August while on a two-week holiday in South Africa.

He got caught up in a taxi turf war gunfight.

By Teoh’s wife account, police officers callously ignored the dying man and refused to take him to hospital in one of their vehicles.

That sort of conduct probably doesn’t surprise many South Africans, who’ve long since lost confidence in our cops.

But that picture of a lawless country will not encourage people to possibly risk their lives by coming to South Africa as tourists.

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