By IPS Correspondents
JOHANNESBURG, Dec 10 1999 (IPS)

Hot on the heels of the United Nations declaring three South African attractions World Heritage Sites, the government of President Thabo Mbeki has launched a campaign to draw more tourists to the country.

At the beginning of the month, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) declared South Africa’s Robben Island, St Lucia Wetland and the Sterkfontein Caves, World Heritage Sites.

Robben Island, whose prison held former South African President, Nelson Mandela, for most of the 27 years he was jailed by the apartheid government, is seen as one of the places in the world to symbolise people’s struggle for freedom from oppression. The Island in just off the port city of Cape Town.

The St Lucia Wetlands, in the province of KwaZulu/Natal, contain the biggest estuarine lake — where fresh and sea water meet — in Africa. The area, with its rich concentration of animal and plant life — many of which are unique — has an almost surreal beauty.

Sterkfontein Caves, in the province of Gauteng, is one of the richest and most productive palaeo-anthropological sites in the world. Remains as old as 3.3 million years have been discovered in the caves and nearby sites and these have contributed greatly to the understanding of human evolution.

While the World Heritage Convention demands that national governments protect the sites, it also recognises the need for the attractions to generate jobs and income. Unesco will provide South Africa with technical help to conserve the sites, but in return the government has to provide proper management and legal protection for the attractions.

The declaration of the attractions as World Heritage Sites is expected to greatly increase their tourism potential.

In St Lucia, for example, the South African government is expected to provide the seed capital to kickstart new investment in tourist infrastructure in the region.

According to the project manager of the Lubombo Spatial Development Initiative (SDI), Andrew Zaloumis, investment plans could result in 4,000 permanent jobs and generate up to 850 million Rand worth of foreign exchange a year.

One US Dollar is equal to 6.1 Rand.

The Lubombo SDI aims to facilitate investment in St Lucia and the surrounding Maputaland region.

But, if the declaration of the World Heritage Sites are going to turn into a boost for tourism South Africa, then the country is going to have to jack-up its tourist industry.

This week, Minister for Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Valli Moosa, launched a 160 million Rand campaign to promote the importance of tourism among South Africans and asking them to welcome tourists to the country. It was launched in Soweto, the sprawling township famous across the world for its resistance to apartheid — and a popular tourist attraction.

The campaign has the slogan: “For every eight tourists that visit our country, one job is created.” This is a powerful message in a country struggling with an official unemployment level of 23 percent of economically active people. It has the backing of the business and a number of companies have put money into the campaign that is being promoted as a joint initiative of the public and private sectors.

The “Welcome” campaign is laying the ground for South Africa’s biggest international drive to market the country as a tourist destination, to be launched in February 2000. The campaign includes a plan to bring a number of London taxi drivers to South Africa, so they can promote the country to their customers.

Besides the United Kingdom, the United States, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and France — South Africa’s major tourist markets — will be targeted by the campaign.

More than five million tourists visited South Africa last year. South Africa is number 25 on the world’s list of tourist destinations, but ranks only 42 in terms of the amount of foreign exchange the industry earns the country.

Tourism only generates about 20 billion Rand for South Africa every year. Moosa would like to see the industry overtake mining — the mainstay of South African exports — as the country’s top earner of foreign exchange.

Asked to comment on reports that the high levels of violent crime in South Africa are keeping tourists away, Moosa replied that the drive was not about sweeping problems under the carpet but about acknowledging them, and doing something about them.

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