Tourist safety video slated

COULD watching a safety video upon arrival in South Africa help keep tourists safe?

The Department of Tourism seems to think so after announcing their latest safety awareness campaign.

The department is embarking on a Festive Season Safety Awareness campaign early next month to protect tourists and prevent crimes that directly target or affect them.

One of the initiatives includes a safety video that tourists may need to watch upon arrival in SA. Under this campaign, the department will engage with the Airports Company South Africa to try to acquire space on TVs across airports. On the screen will be a recorded message presented by Minister of Tourism Lindiwe Sisulu, giving safety advice to tourists.

The campaign comes after a string of attacks on tourists, including the recent one on a group of German tourists at the entrance to Kruger National Park.

A Ukrainian national, Anichka Penev, was also recently kidnapped outside of a business in Blackheath in Cape Town. She was later found in Khayelitsha and reunited with her family soon after.

With the country’s reputation as a tourism destination having suffered, the Department of Tourism is set to institute various safety measures to keep visitors safe, the video being one.

Other safety measures include a dedicated police team who will focus their attention on keeping tourists safe as well as fast-tracking cases involving international tourists.

Crime experts say while a safety video could be useful to tourists, allowing them to watch the video just before landing is a terrible idea.

TSU International kidnapping incident manager, advocate Herman Bosman, said a safety video was more likely to scare off visitors.

“Prior proper planning would be a better option instead of a safety induction. It’s like going to any country in the world,” said Bosman.

“Just like certain places in the US I would not visit alone or at night. Some areas I would not even visit at all. Same here in South Africa, some areas are safe and some are not.”

Bosman advised would-be visitors to make sure they carefully plan their trips, regardless of where in the world they plan to travel.

Private investigator Mike Bolhuis said showing tourists a video literally before they stepped into the country was a bad idea. “It’s unfortunately a shocking idea, in my opinion,” said Bolhuis. “It will put so much fear into them that they will catch the next flight straight back home. All people should know well in advance before coming to another country about the dangers, etc. I don’t think it helps telling people about the dangers just before they arrive.”

Bolhuis said while the idea of a safety video was good, it needed to be shown to potential tourists well before they booked their ticket.

“I am all for a safety video. But that needs to be seen by tourists when they are planning their trips to South Africa and not just before they leave or arrive in the country. All people should know before they go to another country exactly what the situation is there crime-wise.”

Bolhuis said the safety video also needed to include hard, true facts.

“The safety video also shouldn’t be soap washed. We need to show the true reality of what is actually going on in this country so people are made aware of everything that is happening.

“Unfortunately, the Department of Tourism has instituted these safety measures to ramp up tourism during the festive season so that the country makes money. It is always about money.”

Bolhuis said information such as statistics on the number of tourists who have been kidnapped, robbed, harmed, or murdered should be made readily available to those interested in visiting the country.

“Yes, tourism in this country may take a hit, but it’s about keeping people safe. They can make an informed decision then as to whether they want to visit or not. If you are a wealthy family, it will be a good idea for you to also appoint a private bodyguard or police officer to look after you and your family while you are visiting.”

Lizette Lancaster, manager of the Crime Hub at the Institute for Security Studies, believes a safety video would be beneficial for tourists before they enter the country.

“South Africa is a particularly violent and dangerous place for many citizens, particularly if you live in lower socio-economic areas where crime and violence are rife,” said Lancaster.

“The problem arises when tourists transit through dangerous areas. It is our social responsibility to make sure whoever visits our country is as safe as they can be by having accurate information about the country and explaining to them some areas are more risky than others.”

Werner Koekemoer, a senior specialist investigator, said tourists needed to be made aware of the dangers they could face when visiting South Africa.

“The country has a high rate of violent crime, though it is typically concentrated in larger cities.”

TOURISM contributed about

R209 billion to the fiscus in 2019.

The sector also employed 773 533 people, about one in every 21 people with a job.

But that was 2019, before Covid arrived and put a halt to travel and decimated the industry.

Now, with travel and occupancy restrictions consigned to the past, the industry is slowly picking itself up.

In a climate of regular power cuts, unpredictable water supply in some areas and the closure of four airlines, this is no mean task.

And it is showing in the numbers. Both domestic (228%) and foreign (216%) tourism appears to be increasing in leaps and bounds, according to Stats SA data, although this is off a low base from mid-Covid conditions in July 2021.

In addition, with the festive season looming, local flight capacity is expected to be low, meaning ticket prices will reach new highs.

In these circumstances, the last thing the country needed was the murder of German Jörg Schnarr on the doorstep of the Kruger National Park, one of South Africa’s premier tourism destinations.

Now, searches for the Kruger will come up with results including “Murder of German tourist”.

To her credit, Tourism Minister Lindiwe Sisulu reacted well. She and her officials consoled and helped Schnarr’s widow and the other tourists present when her husband was killed.

The incident could not have come at a worse time. There has been a notable increase in tourists from Germany, after the quiet Covid years, and Germany had just decided to lay on a new flight to Mpumalanga.

While this arrangement is still expected to proceed, German media are already asking: “German killed: How safe are tourists in South Africa?”

Sisulu’s reaction to the issue is having tourists watch a safety video on arrival in South Africa.

Surely the solution lies in addressing the atrociously high levels of crime, to benefit not just tourists, but South Africans too, who must daily run the gauntlet of home invasions, hijackings, rapes and murders?

But this would not occur to someone cocooned from such realities, and who does not experience load shedding and does not pay for water and electricity.