We need tourism heroes to champion our battle
Water-wise visitors are not the enemy but our best friends right now
AN ECONOMY isn’t one entity, it’s a patchwork of the collective efforts of millions of individuals across a variety of sectors. Tourism isn’t an isolated sector; it influences a number of other contributors to the economy, such as construction projects, supply chains in food and beverages, as well as interior design elements such as decoration, furniture and so on. In short, tourism holds many industries together.
In Cape Town, the money that tourists spend in the city contributes significantly to growth economically, which is estimated in excess of R15 billion and supports almost 50 000 jobs. Some of these jobs include mine, my teams, our 1 400-member businesses but also the suppliers to the industry. Who knows, this could be the sector that supports you or someone close to you. The water crisis should not, and does not have to, result in an economic downturn for the city.
We noted the anxiety and trepidation from locals as we went into the high-season holiday period of December, with fears that a mass arrival of tourists would place a strain on our already embattled water supplies. As tourism stakeholders, we worked together with other organisations such as Fedhasa, the SA Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Southern Africa Tourism Services Association, Wesgro and the City of Cape Town to calculate the effect that visitors would have on the city’s resources.
Our conclusion? Negligible. We receive about five million visitors via Cape Town International Airport annually, which would be a major concern for the four million Capetonians if they all arrived on the same day. But these visitors (tourists, visiting friends, relatives and business people) equate to about 18 000 new people daily in December (our busiest month by volumes), which is less than 0.4% of the total citizen population. In other words, these visitors are not as significant a drain on the water resources as previously perceived by the public.
The fears that tourism would affect the city negatively had, instead, the opposite response from tourism businesses, which have been rising to the challenge since it become apparent we were facing a crisis. Concerted, ongoing efforts have been in place to increase messaging about the need to save water and the need to communicate this with visitors.
Major tourism businesses such as the key attractions have been signatories to the Responsible Tourism Charter since 2009, and understand the need to amend their practices and respect the environment and communities with which they engage. Many are leading the way with groundbreaking, water-savings initiatives. These are gaining attention globally, since many major destinations are facing similar climate change challenges.
And yet we’re still running out of water. We are aware that this is likely to endure for many months to come. We can’t simply produce water where there is none, and alternative water supplies take enormous infrastructural developments to access.
Each household must take what measures they can to address the shortage and we need to band together to ensure that no one goes without this most precious resource.
As you can imagine, the massive adaptations we’ve had to make, and the necessary changes to our infrastructure require funds. I’d like to suggest that the cash injection from visitors to the city should be viewed in this way. They’re not here to exploit our resources, they’re adding benefits, way beyond what we can do on our own.
Without these visitors, many attractions would not be sustainable as businesses; they’d be forced to close.
Remember the visa debacle? That took months to subside, having an impact on the tourism sector that was far-reaching. We’re facing similar repercussions with the water crisis – realistically, we can expect local and international tourism figures to drop for a period. This is not the time to stop marketing the city, but the time to increase our efforts in showcasing Cape Town as a worldclass destination, always with the caveat that water is scarce, and the proviso that all locals and visitors should be redoubling efforts to save wherever possible.
Visitors are not the enemy; they’re our best friends right now and, although we’re in a crisis, the wonderful thing about Capetonians is that when there’s a crisis, we have each other’s backs.
Communities rally together to support one another, and we often hear stories of individual heroes who make sacrifices, not for acclaim, but for the benefit of others.
We need tourism heroes: those who will see the bigger picture and welcome our friends from across the globe with open arms. Tell them we appreciate them, and make sure that they have such a wonderful time while here that they go home and tell their friends just how much they #LoveCapetown.
We’re making it clear that, at every turn, visitors should contribute to saving water as if they were locals.
And many of them are supporting us in our water-savings plans while growing our economy at the same time. For this we thank them and encourage you to welcome them to our beautiful city and allow them to enjoy it here, making great memories while acting responsibly.
This is the way our economy will stay afloat and our friends and families in tourism-related businesses will endure to see the next generation of visitors enjoying what we have to offer.
THIS IS NOT THE TIME FOR US TO STOP MARKETING THE CITY BUT THE TIME TO INCREASE OUR EFFORTS IN SHOWCASING CAPE TOWN AS A WORLD-CLASS TOURIST DESTINATION