In the past two days Oscar Pistorius has featured in the 19h00 and 21h45 news broadcasts on ZDF TV, one of the largest German TV channels, the story no doubt reported by every other TV station in the country too.   Yesterday Shrien Dewani arrived in Cape Town by special chartered jet, to appear in court briefly for the alleged murder in 2010 of his wife, which he is alleged to have masterminded and paid for.  He has dodged being extradited to our country for more than three years, pleading that his alleged mental illness made him unfit to be extradited.  The story is being extensively reported by the UK media.  One must ask how damaging the coverage of both these alleged murders are for our tourism industry.

Of the two cases, the Oscar Pistorius one is the more serious one when it comes to its potential for its negative effect on the Tourism industry.  Pistorius described in detail in court to what extent he and his family have been the subject of crime, and why he carried one or more firearms.  Interesting was the report by Times Live yesterday, with research by Data Driven Insight (DDI) reflecting that the Pistorius case is dominating all news reporting locally, at 36%, followed by the Dewani case at 31%. Internationally, the coverage for the case between Monday and Tuesday was highest in South African tourism source countries, being the USA, the UK, Germany, Australia, and France, followed in sixth place by South Africa. DDI measures coverage by scanning 6,2 million ‘social media platforms‘, 60000 online newspapers, and 66 radio and TV channels globally.  The Pistorius case will dominate the rest of the week, as Pistorius testifies with his advocate Barry Roux, and then is cross-examined by State Prosecutor Gerrie Nel. Continue reading →