Africa Wild

have seen reports that the parks is actually trying to downplay this attack and make it out to be some kind of domestic incident

Also the stolen spare tires and hustle-bustle during the night

The police must be examining the case

Fewer tourists visited SA in 2019 compared to 2018

Friday 27 September 2019 - 3:18pm

https://youtu.be/fr6YA6ny52g
South Africa's Tourism industry has suffered a setback. According to Statistics SA, the number of international visitors to date has declined. Courtesy #DStv403

JOHANNESBURG - Fewer tourists have visited South Africa this year compared to 2018.

Stats SA says the number of international visitors to date declined by 1.4 percent.

The Tourism Business Council says restrictive policies played a part in the drop.

Tourism Business Council of South Africa CEO Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa says the country's image abroad has been tainted by the recent violent attacks on foreign nationals.

"Our image internationally is tarnished if you talk to a lot of people. Remember, we have been operating in this business for the past 25 years with issues of crime and we've been navigating as an industry now with social media where everyone can report what's going on."

WATCH: Crime Stats: 58 people killed a day in SA

"We have to work even harder, our PR has to be even more robust, online presence, more robust so we can counter the messages that are going into the market. We need to put in more resources to be able to see more tourists coming into the country."

Watch the full interview with Tourism Business Council of South Africa CEO Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa above.

I have left one of the links put in the article

no surprise there .Imagine that

New tourism monitors ready for duty
Deputy minister of tourism, Fish Mahlalela, presided over the graduation held at Communio Church.
19 hours ago

It was a proud moment for 210 graduates who successfully graduated from the Tourism Monitors Training Programme on Friday.

Deputy minister of tourism, Fish Mahlalela, presided over the graduation held at Communio Church.





In collaboration with the Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks Agency (MTPA), the Department of Finance, Economic Development and Tourism hosted the graduation ceremony for the youths.

The monitors mean to ensure visitor safety and service excellence at the tourist attractions in the province.

During that graduation, Mahlalela said, “The Tourism Monitors Programme is part of the broader government intervention that involves training, mentorship and deployment of unemployed youth in identified tourism attractions and sites.


“The objectives of the Tourism Monitors Programme is primarily the enhancement of tourism safety awareness at key tourism attractions and consequently the reduction of the number of criminal incidents that are directed against tourists; to eliminate opportunities for such crime and to integrate current tourism safety and awareness initiatives into sustainable programmes.

“The most unfortunate part is that in past years and months we have seen the province gaining a reputation of a high level of crime, criminality and social instability, service delivery protests and related issues that are negative. I was looking at the statistics of tourists attacks; it’s very bad,” Mahlalela said.

“It is a matter that is worrying us at national level and we think as Mpumalanga you need to stand up and say ‘not in our name’. ‘Enough is enough’.



It cannot continue like this. You must create an environment that enables our tourists. We cannot accept this situation. We cannot allow the province to be terrorised by the minority, just because they are a minority.”



Johannes Nobunga, CEO of the MTPA, said the province was excited to be part of the initiative, which offers young people an opportunity to participate and benefit from the development opportunities in the tourism sector.

“The exposure of these young people through this programme has empowered them with work experience through placement at various tourist attractions within the province.”

https://lowvelder.co.za/507871/new-tour ... eady-duty/

Excellent idea, let's hope that it helps

Finally, someone who says clearly how bad the situation is and that something has to be done about it....and has done something

Stats SA: tourism sector not growing

https://www.pressreader.com/south-afric ... 5630990211

Decreasing foreign tourist numbers to SA

The Sunday Independent17 Nov 2019

THE latest data released by Stats SA confirms that the tourism sector is not growing at its full potential, and is in fact regressing.

There are a number of reasons for this; these include, but are not limited to, the current visa regime and visa processing issues and safety and security concerns.

The statistics confirm that fewer international tourists are visiting our shores. Countries have shown a dramatic decrease in tourists to our country. This includes China, which has shown a decrease of over 10%.

German tourists have traditionally contributed high numbers of visitors to our shores, but those have decreased by 6.5%.

Tourists from other African countries have also cumulatively dropped by 1.4%. For these statistics to change, the Department of Tourism needs to do things differently.

As a start, it needs to co-ordinate more aggressively and tightly with other departments such as Home Affairs and Police as well as entities such as SANParks.

The government needs to start working hard on changing the image of South Africa. Activities such as the Rugby World Cup victory should be capitalised on and piggybacked on.

To date, the government has allowed such opportunities to be lost.

This must change so that the number of international tourists to our shores can increase. This would have a knock-on effect on growing jobs and our economy.

MANNY DE FREITAS, MP | DA Tourism
Spokesperson

He has forgotten to mention the high numbers of crimes that goes from pickpocketing to murder

And the current mess with SAA won't help either.