In his media conference last week, focusing on the state of the summer season in the Western Cape, provincial Minister of Tourism Alan Winde specifically mentioned the poor performance of Robben Island, with a decrease in visitor numbers of 7,5 % compared to a year ago
Minister Winde scathingly said about Robben Island: “This World Heritage Site continues to be plagued by bad service, staff with questionable work ethic and shoddy infrastructure. Instead of being an icon of our province and country, Robben Island has become a blemish on our tourism industry. I have requested a meeting with the Robben Island team to discuss possible improvements“.
The Minister was reviewing the ‘summer season’, but seemed to focus on December performance in the main, excluding the months of October and November, which are the start of the summer season. These were poor summer months in Cape Town, October having the poorest accommodation occupancy in the past five years, and November up on November 2010, but nowhere near the 88 – 94 % occupancy range experienced in 2007 – 2009. In Franschhoek occupancy was severely down for these two months, the lowest in the past five years, while Hermanus showed a small recovery. International arrivals at Cape Town International were recorded at 86910 in December, a 17% increase on last December, the Minister said, and 337385 domestic arrivals, only a small increase. Anyone in the tourism industry will tell the Minister that the actual experience was the opposite – a massive increase in domestic tourists was experienced over the festive season, and a massive drop-off in British tourists. Interesting is that the total 2011 Cape Town International passenger number of 4,2 million was 4 % up on the total for 2010, the World Cup having attracted above average arrivals in June and July of that year, but had severely affected tourism during the rest of the year, meaning that any comparisons to 2010 are artificial anyway. The Minister also quoted a 19 % increase in visitors to Cape Point in December on a year ago, with 106672 visitors, while Kirstenbosch recorded a minimal growth, with 77300 visitors.
Visitor numbers for some Western Cape attractions decreased on a year ago, and the Minister said that more innovative solutions needed to be found to ‘market the province’s entire tourism offering‘.
The Minister provided the tourism focus for 2012, to achieve the goal of Tourism’s contribution of 15 % to the Western Cape economy in 2014. For the year ahead the activities will include:
* promoting the Western Cape in traditional and new markets, with a focus on Africa, the Middle East and the BRICS countries
* Encouraging domestic tourism as ‘the bread and butter of our tourism industry’
* Growing business, events and sport tourism, the planned expansion of the Cape Town International Convention Centre playing an important role in this.
* attracting direct flights to Cape Town.
I have the highest regard for the energy of and the difference that the Minister has made since he took over the Tourism department. Shocking however is that the Minister could have referred to an ‘exit poll‘ of 25 interviews conducted at the airport on 11 January (we criticised the irresponsible ‘market research’ conducted by his department at the end of the World Cup) and then quoting results on the basis of this irresponsible sample base to claim that the destination was felt to be safe, that visitors would return, that they had heard of Table Mountain being voted a New7Wonders of Nature, and giving their holiday experience an average score of 8,5 out of 10! One shudders at the thought of the poor questionnaire design, given the sample size, the Minister’s department being as irresponsible as Cape Town Tourism in conducting unprofessional and irresponsible ‘market research’, in the interest of self-applause, one would suspect.
We would like to caution the Minister against over-exaggerating the state of the Tourism industry of this summer season, which firstly is not over yet (only ends at Easter), and to define the summer period correctly, and not focus on December only, or on the festive period, in stating that “the Cape’s tourism industry showed remarkable growth in 2011”, which no tourism player would agree with. The ‘crisis’ situation of the industry during winter 2011 was well documented! The Minister mentioned the international accolades for Cape Town, implying that these improved tourism performance, but once again all in tourism know that international visitor numbers are the lowest ever, domestic tourism being prevalent.
Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage
