On Kfm yesterday I heard a news broadcast, with its leading story being that SA Tourism has admitted that loadshedding is affecting tourists, making the announcement more than a month after loadshedding returned with a vengeance.
SA Tourism CEO Thulani Nzima said that loadshedding affects all sectors of the Tourism industry, including getting tourists to attractions on time, influenced by traffic lights not working. He added that we are not the only country with power outages.
For the accommodation sector, which he did not mention, loadshedding from 8h00 – 10h30, as we have experienced in our guest houses at breakfast time in Camps Bay and Franschhoek, is an inconvenience to our guests, as we are only able to serve them an old-fashioned Continental breakfast of juice, cereals, yoghurt and fruit salad. We do invite our guests to return for a hot breakfast at 10h00. The more inconvenient impact on guests is the sliding gate not working during loadshedding, but we have taught out guests how to override the motor, and to open and close the gate manually. Fortunately many of our guests are locals, and they understand loadshedding fully. More embarrassing is explaining this and apologising to our international (First World) guests, but none of them have complained about it, and understand that we are not to blame for the problem. Given the loadshedding, it is hard to see how our guests, local and international, do waste electricity, especially leaving airconditioners on when they leave the room, not making the connection between loadshedding and saving electricity where possible. A Whale Cottage Camps Bay guest from Harare said we should be grateful to be powerless for ‘only’ 2,5 hours per day, when they experience eight hours per day on average.
Hard for the industry is knowing which Stage of loadshedding Eskom is implementing on a given day, often announcing a Stage for the whole weekend, and then amending this with last minuter notices – for example, this weekend started off with Stage 3 loadshedding on Friday and Saturday, and then reduced to Stage 2 yesterday. Furthermore, the Eskom spokesperson makes bold promises, only to have to withdraw them, leaving the electricity authority with even more egg on its face. A week ago he told the media that further loadshedding in December would be very unlikely, but four days later loadshedding went to the severe Stage 3.
The SA Tourism website has not been updated to reflect the severity of loadshedding, and its impact on tourists in our country. It currently states: ‘With a few exceptions in deep rural areas, electricity in South Africa is available almost everywhere. With the growth of the population, business and industry, electricity supply is sometimes under pressure, particularly in densely populated urban areas when usage reaches a peak, resulting in a power outage. The supplier of South African electricity, Eskom, and government, have prioritised the extension of the South African electrical grid with the construction of new power stations, diversification of power sources and instituting energy efficient programmes’. The last sentence is downright dishonest!
Loadshedding affects our blogging too, our most productive and creative time being in the evening, but is influenced by the Atlantic Seaboard loadshedding from 18h00 – 20h15 on most days!
Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Tel (021) 433-2100, Twitter:@WhaleCottage Facebook: click here
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Hi Chris, We arrived at Terroir yesterday for lunch, told it was cancelled due to load shedding happening at 2pm and their generator was not working, at an estimated 300-400 rand per head you can imagine the loss incurred…. luckily they have a new star “irish” manager who sensing our dissapointment told us to sit down and she would see what she could do, we then had one of the most superb meals ever, 3 courses later we drove away happy having had the whole place to ourselves…
What lovely feedback Darren from Hout Bay, and for shedding the light on Terroir’s good service despite loadshedding!
Chris, I was lucky on my recent visit to only experience load shedding three times. Twice at Majeka House and once in McGregor where it was 6 until 8am. However, it was promised in Caledon but never happened!
I fear that if this is ongoing then it will have a severe impact on tourism. Your tourism in SA, particularly in the Cape is aimed at people who visit for the whole experience, which doesn’t include third world facilities of no electricity! This is particularly true when coming from Europe. One of the reasons for visiting is the first world experience at relatively cost effective prices, which off sets the expensive flight to get to South Africa.
I’m not sure people will cancel but they may think twice about booking.
There is no indication how long load shedding is going to last, so it may be a knock on effect for 2015 season.
Lisa
Very valid points made Lisa.
This morning a guest asked me why the aircon in his room is not working, and I went to check the DB Board. It had tripped, the guest explaining that when the power is switched back on, the surge in electricity can lead to the switches tripping – another lesson learnt in our loadshedding adventure!