South Africa, xenophobia and tourism
The continent-wide Africa Day celebration last week could not have come at a better time for South Africa as the occasion offered a good opportunity for some high-profile personalities to comment on the xenophobic attacks which occurred in sections of Johannesburg and Durban last April.
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At a well-attended programme at the university of Pretoria Mamelodi campus, President Jacob Zumah repeatedly said that South Africans were not xenophobic.
Quoting Kwame’s Nkrumah’s well-known saying about the independence of Ghana being meaningless until it was linked up with the total liberation of the African continent, President Zuma stated that his country understood the sacrifices other Africans made for the Rainbow Nation’s liberation from apartheid rule and would always uphold continental unity.
“There are elements of criminality who commit criminal activities to rob people of their goods etc, who pretend that they are xenophobic. I think it is important for us to be aware of such a fact,” President Zuma said in defence of his country.
Booming tourism
The AU Commission Chairperson, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, spoke directly about the impact of other Africans on South Africa’s economy and said the fortunes of countries on the continent were intertwined.
“When we talk about the booming tourism in South Africa, the majority of the tourists are Africans but we don’t know. We think they are British. We think they are Americans or Asians but it is actually Africans who come in the majority as tourists. They come to spend money here and we benefit from it,” she clearly pointed out.
That was an assertion obviously not known to ordinary South Africans, but well appreciated by the country’s tourism insiders.
At the INDABA 2015 Pan-African tourism tradeshow in Durban last month, the South African Tourism Minister, Derek Hanekom, described tourism in his country as “a spectacular success story” and admitted that out of the about 10 million visitors they get annually, seven million come from other African countries.
There are statistics to show that over the last two decades, the tourism sector in South Africa has outstripped growth in all other sectors of the nation’s economy.
Though several countries cited 2014 as quite a difficult year in terms of economic growth, tourist arrivals in South Africa grew by 6.6 per cent in the year and the indications are that there is still an expansion in tourism which employs over 1.4 million people in that country.
Global marketing
Anyone who has had the chance to experience some of South Africa’s tourist destinations can testify that the country’s global marketing efforts, done mainly through South African Tourism (SAT) headed by Thulani Nzima, are paying off well.
All year round, there is never a shortage of tourists flocking in to see destinations spread across the country’s nine provinces.
Whether the interest is in wildlife, river rafting, paragliding, bungee jumping, hot air balloon rides, politics, history, music or literature, there is enough to catch one’s fancy at every turn.
Tourism, however, does not happen in a vacuum. A lot eventually depends on the people who cook and serve the food, safety-conscious drivers who ferry visitors around, knowledgeable tour guides who give accurate information and generally, folks equipped with the right skills and, attitudes to offer services of the highest standard to visitors.
SAT’s boss, Nzima, emphasised what he said at a press briefing during INDABA 2015 that “everything we do about tourism in this country will come to nothing if the South African people themselves are not welcoming to our guests.
“It is the interaction visitors have with the people here that they will remember when they go back to their countries and for us, that is very important.”
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One of the current advertisements SAT has put out to support its key activity of marketing South Africa as a preferred tourist destination curiously says: “It takes a lot of people to make your holiday special. Fortunately, we have 54 million of them.”
The advert suggests that everyone in South Africa is welcoming to visitors but some people refuse to accept that claim due to last April’s anti-foreigner activities that resulted in the death of seven persons.
Admittedly, there was a fairly rapid governmental response to deal with the xenophobia attacks and South Africans of various backgrounds came out in their thousands to also denounce the shameful attacks.
Male South African migrant dwellers in hostels around Johannesburg and Durban came under suspicion as having masterminded the attacks on foreigners. There is speculation now that the hostels, which for more than 100 years have been home for migrant black workers, may be shut down.
May 2008
One does not know everything else that the South African government has embarked on to ensure that the anti-foreigner attacks, which also occurred in May 2008, does not happen again.
Whichever way one looks at the situation, last April’s happenings created extremely bad publicity for South Africa across the world. One knows for sure that some Ghanaians cancelled flights to South Africa as a result of the attacks.
Tourism, no doubt, is a sector that is performing well in South Africa. The Rainbow Nation has even initiated a move to cooperate with other African countries on how to collectively market the continent and its unique offerings.
That means South Africa knows it can succeed better if it helps to pull sister countries up on the tourism ladder. More significantly, most of the visitors it attracts are from Africa and the figures will definitely slump in the wake of another anti-foreigner behaviour.
After all, as the late brilliant South African jazz saxophonist and composer Winston Mankunku Ngozi says in his ‘Abantwana Ba Afrika’ song:
“We are the children of Africa
Let’s all get together and be united.”