The State of the Nation from a Tourism perspective. Western Cape unbeatable.

H

Hosehead

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Ah.
It has been a fascinating two months – a 9,000km trip around South Africa that ended at the tourism Indaba in Durban.

We drove many routes that make one of Europe's top scenic routes – Gorge de Verdun – pale by comparison. We experienced world-beating hospitality and tourism products. We were in awe of South Africa's natural beauty, but so often despaired at the chaos in local government.

Local government (through its failure, especially in the Eastern Cape and Limpopo) has become tourism's biggest enemy. Mthatha and many other towns are totally dysfunctional. It took 45 minutes to drive 300m through Mthatha on the N2! Many civil servants, when they draw their salaries each month, are no more than common thieves... and they drag the whole civil service down with them. It won't get better until incompetent, corrupt managers and politicians get the chop.

Notions of "World Class" and "African Cities" seem to be oceans apart and one has to wonder why Cape Town is SA's top tourist city and the V&A Waterfront its top tourist destination. Travels with Akela will be exploring this in the coming weeks.

Idiotic sums of money are wasted on clueless destination branding: put Buffalo City or Nelson Mandela Bay into your SatNav and see if it takes you anywhere! Indaba's host city is as dumb... there a huge colourful sign welcoming you to eThekwini Municipality, with an old, almost-invisible sign below it saying Welcome to Durban. Do tourists gives a damn about municipalities? Why should they?

The Western Cape, by comparison, feels as though it's part of another country. Things work; it's clean and there is a tangible, visible pride! But things can work better though. See our open letter to Helen Zille about Route 62. Alan Winde has posted a reponse but there's been nothing from Helen or Robin Carlisle, the provincial transport minister...

Our Indaba highlight was finally getting to meet Alan Winde, Western Cape minister of finance, economic development & tourism. And unlike the CEO of Eastern Cape Tourism, Winde was one of the most accommodating people to meet at Indaba. Several product owners from other provinces looked on rather jealously at the way Winde worked his way through all his province's exhibitors, stopping to talk to everybody. Other politicians and bureaucrats were rarely to be seen.

I'm told Indaba in Durban is a good excuse for shopping and taking in the city's delights. Hell, do any of these people realise that Indaba is about work? And, if stories about the Eastern Cape CEO's accommodation requirements are to be believed, the best can never be good enough. Why is it that the Fat Cats rarely deliver the goods?
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Tell us something we don't already know!

Eastern Cape sucks ass ,as does every other province not run by the DA.
 
Tell us something we don't already know!

Eastern Cape sucks ass ,as does every other province not run by the DA.
 
Hemps said:
Tell us something we don't already know!

Eastern Cape sucks ass ,as does every other province not run by the DA.
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It might suck. But it sucks a lot less than it used to. Did you ever drive through the Transkei 15 years ago ? All mudhuts, no electricity or running water, No trees. totally filthy etc. Today there's a huge change for the better there.
 
I come from the Transkei and was born there, and for your info the Transkei was cleaner before it became part of SA.

And I still see mudhuts, MORE filth than ever before and less agriculuture - sucks less?
 
Hemps said:
John Galt - explore more than the N2 for an eye opener.
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Trust me. I do. In some of the most isolated parts you can only get to with 4X4 you find most people have electricity (all the bells and whistles that go with it), running water, clinics and schools now. It's really quite amazing but not entirely surprising as this is the A.N.C's biggest voter base.
 
JohnGalt said:
Trust me. I do. In some of the most isolated parts you can only get to with 4X4 you find most people have electricity (all the bells and whistles that go with it), running water, clinics and schools now. It's really quite amazing but not entirely surprising as this is the A.N.C's biggest voter base.
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Not surprising then that its the worst run province with the highest levels of corruption.
 
Sure, they have limited timed electricity per month and you are correct, you now need a 4x4 to get to most places off the N2 especially when going to the coast, the dirt roads are worse than ever.
BUT, and a big BUT - alot of money comes from EU funds, I have spoekn to engineers boith agricultural, civil and electric. and many are payed via external sources.
Not all, but many.

The ANC doesn't mention any of this and take credit for a lot of stuff that they have no hand in.
 
As far as the clinics and hospitals are concerned - I have seen first hand in Bhisho the paperwork lying all over the floor with cutout cardboard on top with the clinic or hospital name written on it, then when we want to see paperwork are told it doesn't exist, we can se it liying in the next room.
Absolute chaos at the department of health.............
I was there 7 weeks back, in the one room piled on the floor was the paperwork for Tafalaffefe hospital 20km from Mazeppa Bay - something about stock and medicine requests from what i can deduce.
 
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