Irresponsible newspaper journalists like Bernard Sathekge of The New Age give journalism a bad name, by creating headlines which mislead their readers, especially those who just scan the headlines and do not read the content.
Writing one month after the passing of Nelson Mandela, Sathekge creates a headline ‘Madiba magic boosts tourism’ for his story, but quotes SA Tourism arrival figures for the period January – September 2013 throughout his article, clearly misleading the readers of the newspaper. He follows this with a secondary headline, which is even more misleading and downright dishonest: ‘Late statesman’s stature contributes to raising number of visitors from around the world‘. He underlines his dramatic headlines with his view that ‘Nelson Mandela continues to do the country a power of good as his death has spurred interest worldwide as well as locally in Mandela heritage sites‘, quoting visits to the Mandela Museum in Qunu, very much off the beaten tourism track, to have ‘spiked‘. This is the sum total of his information foundation of the article, filling the rest with unrelated 2013 tourism trend information!
He does not mention the Robben Island museum in Cape Town, which does not support his findings, it having seen a 5% decline in visitor numbers in December 2013, according to information provided by the City of Cape Town. In part the decline was due to two of the three Robben Island ferries not operating. The service has received very negative feedback from tour operators about the poor experience, and many do not build the Robben Island tour into their guest itineraries any more. The guides at the former prison, who were prisoners with Mr Mandela, are however praised by visitors.
Time will tell if the passing of Mr Mandela will attract more tourists to South Africa generally, and to Cape Town specifically. International tourists will be likely to want to see Robben Island, but would be unlikely to visit South Africa or Cape Town just as a result of Mr Mandela’s passing. At this stage there is no sign of a tourism boost.
Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage
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