Local tourism month - much to do

September is local tourism month. Do we have the balls to do what’s needed?

News from the National Department of Tourism is that September is all about promoting local travel. This augers well – according to their own figures, 14.6 million South Africans undertook about 30 million domestic trips in 2009, spending around R22m.

However, as a travel writer who spends much of his time out in the field, it’s clear there’s much to be done. And a whole lot of hot air is being released by the Department, along with the statistics. 

Another of these is the admission that they have spent R70m in six years marketing the country locally. For all that – and it should be applauded – lack-lustre pressure on other national agencies and departments to come to the tourism party means that the money is all but wasted.

Chief among the culprits are the roads. One example is the R26 Free State Maloti Route road, now all but impassable for the hippo-sized potholes. There are countless others, denying communities and travellers access to needed tourist rands.

Then there’s the tourist information office problem across the land. Local political considerations has meant many official offices are all but useless, with a severe lack of knowledge, crazy opening hours (Kimberley’s is closed over holidays) and awful online representation the order of the day. Into this vacuum have sprung up myriad unofficial offices – better run but unregulated, meaning anyone with any agenda and photocopier – or vested interests – can make hay by promoting x over y. News last week that government is looking to streamline these offices (as well as the wider provincial and national authorities) is heartening, but if their solution is simply to shut down the new initiatives and return to the awful official offices, then not heartening at all, and travellers will suffer.

But most important of all is a mind-shift needed by government, in a society that could benefit enormously from it domestic market. The powers-that-be must be made to understand that tourism is absolutely vital, and that properly coordinated, can be the engine that drives real, quantifiable development across all sectors. Just ask New Zealand, Botswana and Costa Rica. Tourism in its broadest sense cannot be left to privatise, and the State must fund its parks, heritage sites, and other natural entities.

Just as important is that South Africans need to look up, open their eyes and reconnect with their whole country. They need urgently to get involved in maintaining and promoting their architectural, natural and historical heritage. I wander across our country with a growing sense that no one sees what I see, that fewer and fewer care about the exquisite dorps, the Kimberley Club, the Pela Cathedral, the lesser flamingos of Kamfers Dam, the historical houses of Hatfield, the giant baobab near Tzaneen, let alone the vast treasure trove of Mid-Century architecture across our interior, quickly falling to the Lubners hording monster. There are too many glorious buildings, small parks, historic sites simply dying from neglect, seemingly ignored by government and us as irrelevant as we rush headlong by in a black BMW headed for world domination.

It’s not good enough to keep suggesting, as some do, that we should be looking after them for foreigner visitors. No, this is our land, our responsibility and our treasure. Make a difference, fill a pothole, lobby your MP. And go visit the Loeriesfontein windmill museum. Twice, just for that glorious road.