November 14, 2005
TOWARDS the end of October my wife and I took a few days break in the mountains near Pilgrim's Rest. It's been quite some years since we visited the picturesque village itself, so we spent a morning wandering around. Interestingly, there was quite a large number of foreign tourists wandering around too.
I was struck on the one hand at how little local, unique product was available for the tourists and on the other how much was available that can be seen and bought in every town and city throughout the country. And a high proportion of it was African but not South African.
When we got back to our car we found it had been washed and polished, and a young man waiting to be paid for this unsolicited service. When my wife commented that the price, R30, was more than she paid in Joburg, the young man replied that there were no employment opportunities locally and he had to be entrepreneurial to survive. I thought his answer made his price worth paying.
It turned out that he had a diploma from Pretoria Tech in tourism but, even with plenty of tourists around, was reduced to cleaning cars, unasked, to make some sort of a living.
The incident reminded me that some time ago I had promised to share the results of an excellent research report into cultural tourism.
Earlier this year the ComMark Trust commissioned the Monitor Group "to investigate ways to catalyse growth in Johannesburg's tourism sector with a focus on the creation of a market for 'cultural product'".
The ComMark Trust is an independent trust dedicated to reducing poverty in southern Africa. It concentrates on three core sectors that offer significant potential for pro-poor growth - textiles and apparel, tourism and agribusiness.
It focusses on the regulatory, policy, productivity and business service constraints in these sectors to make them work more inclusively and effectively for poor people - whether as workers, entrepreneurs or consumers.
A good place to start is by defining "cultural tourism". The report provides a neat but wide definition: cultural tourism is "tourism that facilitates an experience of the arts, culture, history, heritage, way of life and uniqueness of people in a given region".
There were four key findings, each supported by a wealth of information. I have extracted and summarised what I think are the most pertinent.
Key Finding One
This first key finding comes from an overview of current tourism demand and states that, "Currently, Johannesburg is primarily a destination for business and the visiting of friends and relatives. Arrivals are dominated by business travellers and traders from the southern African region, and by domestic travellers visiting friends and relatives."
The report found that Johannesburg captures around 6,7 million of the total 55,8 million trips into and within South Africa
This equates to 12 percent of market share by volume, but it translates into only 6 percent of the total bed-nights in the country.
On the other hand, the city captured 12 percent of total spend within the country (R6,8-billion).
Domestic travellers account for 56 percent of arrivals to Johannesburg. Of this figure, one-third originate from within Gauteng itself. Turning to foreign arrivals, 65 percent come from Africa.
Gauteng is primarily a business destination for foreign travellers, while for the domestic market it a place for visiting friends and relatives.
The value of cultural tourism is estimated between R500-million and R1-billion.
Key Finding Two
The second finding is derived from determining key opportunities and constraints for cultural tourism in consumer markets.
"The key opportunity for cultural tourism development lies in the local and domestic market and through leveraging current international business travel and tourism. There is an opportunity to develop cultural tourism for overseas leisure travellers in the long-run, but a focus on this in the short term would not be viable," the report states.
It found that there was a clear opportunity of unmet demand for cultural tourism activities in South Africa. In relation to Johannesburg this opportunity was currently limited because the depth of offering would not support a Johannesburg-only leisure trip.
Johannesburg faced a major barrier in terms of brand perceptions dominated by negative attributes relating to safety. There were also key barriers in that tour operators often consciously excluded Johannesburg from packaged itineraries.
Travel agents were unfamiliar with South Africa and the industry was heavily skewed towards serving the business market.
Key Finding Three
The report's third finding relates to the key supply-side challenges in Johannesburg Cultural Tourism and Related Industries.
It states, "Johannesburg has strong cultural assets and many of the basic building blocks in place. Key market features and structural impediments represent core challenges to the city's ability to realise the enormous potential value from these assets."
Johannesburg possessed many strong and potentially valuable cultural assets and attributes, but weak demand drove a fragmented cultural tourism challenge.
Fragmentation was driven by poor awareness levels and a lack of defined strategy aimed at stimulating local demand. In addition, the city's public transport system reflected a lack of friendliness to visitors.
Information about what to do and how to access it was generally unavailable. Where it was available it was difficult to use - it was very limited in nature or out of date.
There were few hubs or nodes of tourist attractions within the city, with most tending to offer a one-dimensional experience.
There was a lack of clarity of roles of tourism institutions and ineffective communication and co-ordination between the many public and private sector bodies.
In addition, there was a fragmented vision and a lack of a clear brand proposition for tourism in Johannesburg, as well as an inconsistent quality and pricing of the products and services.
Key Finding Four
This finding comes from an assessment of the pro-poor opportunities in the Sector.
"Tourism, as a rule, represents strong pro-poor characteristics. Johannesburg appears to be underperforming in realising this potential. Cultural tourism is an opportunity to significantly improve this performance," the report states.
It found that there was limited participation by the poor (both as users and providers of services) in the tourism sector, that small enterprises had difficulty competing in the market, that there was limited infrastructure development, that skills were poor and training was limited, and that there was a lack of institutional capacity.
Isn't it great when research bears out one's gut feeling?! I have for a number of years argued that, regarding the inner city, we must focus our attention on locals, Joburgers and Gauties.
Unless they accept that the inner city offers a rich and unique history as a background to its current regeneration story and is worth visiting, how will we ever sell it to visitors from the rest of the country, the continent and the world?
But to convince them we must get our act together. Two key comments in the report must drive us, namely:
- There is no concrete idea among stakeholders in the tourism industry - let alone the citizens of Johannesburg - as to how the city should be represented to the local and international tourism markets and how this would be differentiated from other cities.
- Despite significant efforts by the local government and its different organs to reduce crime, there has been little success in changing the negative perceptions about crime in the city - either locally or abroad, even though it would appear that specific types of crime have fallen.
Good research is useless if it is not used as the basis for action.
Executive Mayor Councillor Amos Masondo is looking at what priorities should be included in the City's budget and I think it is time that cultural tourism gets more than just the usual lip service. While the report makes certain recommendations to ComMark regarding potential interventions, I think they can be more broadly interpolated for City action.
Firstly, at the systemic level: we need a sector-wide process to develop a shared economic vision and to stimulate leadership and commitment at the highest levels. (In my experience, the industry is plagued with gatekeepers who push their own interests and agendas at the expense of the city; people just don't want to work together unless their own interests are served.)
Secondly, in the market: we need to develop an instrument specifically to catalyse linkages in order to form a new value chain. (We need help to do this and must employ the best available whether local or international, without compromising for the sake of ideology.)
Thirdly, at nodal levels: we need to bring specific capacity to shape and upgrade node-level strategy and capability. (Where there is an identified node of potential, everyone wants to be in on the act, to dominate it and take the glory and this approach usually results in second-class achievements.)
Have a great weekend,
Ciao, Neil
PS: A new magazine was launched last week, Jozi Today. It looks like a really good vehicle for spreading the news about our amazing inner city.
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