In the years following South Africa’s democracy and re-integration into the international community, tourism’s contribution to the country’s gross domestic product/profit had risen considerably. The post-1994 Mandela effect produced an influx of international tourists visiting the country due to curiosity over the end of apartheid and the country’s political transformation. As president of the African National Congress (ANC) and later the first
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democratically elected president of the country, Mandela’s influence on ordinary South Africans to unite as a ‘rainbow nation’ and his leadership in an uncertain political space drew global attention translating into significant development for the country. South Africa was hailed worldwide as a beacon of reconciliation and a successful democracy. While there was considerable growth in the market in the early 1990s, the latter part of the decade brought with it weak investment rates and a currency volatility that drove uncertainty and short-term business strategies overall. This together with the decline of the Mandela effect, growing crime levels and political tension contributed to a decrease in overseas arrivals and tourism spend (SA Tourism, 2009/10; Cornelissen 2005).
The following decade saw an increase in tourism bolstered by the country’s successful hosting of several high-profile global events. Two United Nations’ events in 2001 and 2002, the FIFA World Cup in 2010 and the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2011 were notable events that brought South Africa worldwide attention. The hosting of international events has been significant for the country since its exclusion from global proceedings during apartheid sanctions. Gold mining, traditionally the country’s primary export industry, was outperformed by tourism by three billion rand in 2005 (Ivanovic, 2008). In the same year, over seven million foreign tourists visited South Africa, more than double the volume of national tourism in the 10 years since the country’s first democratic elections in 1994 (ibid).
In 2009 tourism contributed eight percent to South Africa’s gross domestic product (ibid).
While economic constraints due to the global recession in recent years have seen a decline in both domestic and foreign arrivals, foreign expenditure remains considerably high. The second quarter of 2011 saw just over 18 percent of foreign tourists engage in activities relating to culture, history and heritage (SA Tourism Q2 Report, 2011).
In 1996 an absence of adequate education, training and awareness opportunities were regarded as the “greatest deficiency in the tourism industry in South Africa” (Cornelissen, 2005:44). Training capacity was unevenly spread across the provinces, “with Gauteng, North- West and the Western Cape Province leading the field” (ibid). The Northern Cape, and to a lesser degree, the Northern Province and Mpumalanga were identified as having, “little to show in terms of facilities” (ibid). These discrepancies are further marked by the lack of institutions of higher learning in these provinces, usually key vehicles for education and
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training.76 The accomplishment of the growth targets set out in the then Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism’s White Paper on the Development and Promotion of Tourism in South Africa77 (DEAT, 1996) has been mixed. For instance, the number of overseas arrivals in 2000 was over one-and-a-half million, short of the two million mark set out to be accomplished. Another goal was to “maintain a 15 percent increase in total visitor arrivals between the years 1996 and 2006”; the actual growth rate averaged at nine percent between 1993 and 2002 (DEAT, 1996:np; Cornelissen 2005). More than a decade has passed since the writing of the White Paper and many of the barriers to tourism growth remain.
During the period of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, the most visited provinces were Gauteng, the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal (SA Tourism, 2010/11). This is a common trend as most dominant tour itineraries include a few key destinations that are also highly standardised (SA Tourism Q2 Report 2011; Cornelissen 2005). Further, market trends suggest that tourists tend to remain in a single place when on holiday rather than travelling across provinces. Research has shown that Cape Town has been singled out by tour operators as the primary tourist attraction in South Africa (Cornelissen, 2005). Described as the Europe of Africa, Cape Town often receives (through the tourism industry) economic advancements that are needful (and ultimately lacking) in less developed regions of the country. Unlike its western neighbour, the Northern Cape traditionally receives the least percentage of tourists both domestic and international (SA Tourism, 2014). While the province has no shortage of heritage resources accessibility is a concern as road travel is the most common form of journeying in this region and the great distances between locations requires long hours behind the wheel.78
Information from a 2010 and 2011 domestic tourism survey highlighted that the Northern Cape is the least visited province in the country “with 3,0% of day trip travellers in 2010 and 2,4% in 2011” (Statistics South Africa, 2013:6). The percentage of overnight trips was
76 In July 2013 President Jacob Zuma announced the opening of two new universities in the Northern Cape and Mpumalanga province. The Northern Cape’s Sol Plaatje University, is set to establish an academic niche area in heritage studies, including museology, archaeology, indigenous languages and architectural conservation (Mail
& Guardian, 25 July 2013:np).
77 In October 1994, an Interim Tourism Task Team was appointed with the mandate to draft a tourism discussion paper as the foundation for a future national tourism policy. In September 1995, a Tourism Green Paper was produced representing the national and provincial governments, business sector, labour movement and community organisations. Thereafter, “the European Union was approached to provide technical assistance to the Government of South Africa in developing a Tourism White Paper… a great deal of emphasis was placed on developing the White Paper in such a way as to facilitate maximum participation by all” (DEAT, 1996:np).
78 With an area of 372 889 square kilometres, the Northern Cape is the largest of South Africa’s nine provinces (www.southafrica.info).
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similarly low, with 2.6 percent having visited in 2010 and 2.3 percent in 2011 (2013:7). Of those visitors to the province, over 80 percent stayed with friends and family. Similar percentages were noted in the Gauteng (80.8 percent) and Free State (80.8 percent) provinces (ibid). Those provinces, however, enjoy far greater percentages of visitors. Gauteng, for example, “was the most visited province for day trips (23,9% in 2010 and 24,9% in 2011)”
(2013:42). Research into patterns of the hotel sector in the period 1990 to 2010 (Rogerson 2013a, 2013b) shows that while the sector experienced restructuring and upgrading on a national scale, the local hotel sector in Kimberley experienced a net reduction in the number of hotels in the twenty year period. Of the local hotels, 12 were closed down while only seven new properties were opened. The large scale decline of Kimberley’s local hotel industry is
“underpinned by the weak performance of Kimberley as a tourism destination over the past decade” (Van der Merwe & Rogerson, 2013:163).
Best known for its diamonds and marketed as ‘The city that sparkles’ Kimberley is rich in history and replete with museums, art galleries and memorials. The city’s famed diamond rush attracted treasure hunters from around the world and made for a thriving economy.
Kimberley soon became a bustling settlement and a leader in national and international events. Relics and memorials from the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) are to be found in the city and surrounding areas. Once home to Sol Plaatje, apartheid activist, journalist and the first black South African to write a novel in English, the city is also rich in literary history (Welsh, 1998). Nevertheless, with all it has to offer, the city has performed weakly as a tourism destination over the last decade (Van der Merwe & Rogerson, 2013). The decline in hotels may also have been affected by the fact that at least eight out of 10 tourists who visited the Northern Cape between 2010 and 2011 (85.9 percent), stayed with friends or relatives (Statistics South Africa, 2013:26).
While the province remains the least visited in the country, tourists to the Northern Cape grew by 39.8 percent from 2012 to 2013 (SA Tourism, 2014:58). This was the highest growth in the number of tourists to have visited a province in the referenced period. It was also the province that experienced the fastest growth in terms of bed nights/stay overs (1.2 percent).
In July 2012, on the official website of the Northern Cape Tourism Authority, tourism was described as “one of the biggest economic contributors in the province”
(www.northerncape.org.za). As described above, there has been a “year-on-year growth for
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both domestic, African and International arrivals as well as a significant increase in the duration of stay within the province” (ibid). These increased figures have been attributed to the province’s destination marketing efforts (ibid). This is discussed later in the chapter.
In 2011 20 percent of all foreign tourists undertook cultural, historical and heritage activities during their stay in South Africa (SA Tourism, 2014:137). This figure decreased to 16 percent in 2012 and 15 percent in 2013 (2013:135–136). Nevertheless, in 2013 35 percent of all foreign tourists to South Africa noted that the country’s cultural and heritage offerings constituted their most positive experience of South Africa (SA Tourism, 2014:139). This was an increase from both 2012 (32 percent) and 2011 (29 percent) (2013:140–141). The statistics concerning activities undertaken and most positive experience seem at odds. The statistical records do not account for this seeming contradiction. Categories of cultural tourists as defined by Bob McKercher & Hillary Du Cros (2002) and discussed earlier in the chapter may provide some clarification. The incidental, casual or serendipitous cultural tourist might visit a heritage site or participate in a cultural activity as accidental or supplementary to their trip (ibid). It is perhaps because of the subsidiary nature of the cultural or heritage experience that the statistics provided above may seem incongruous.
It is difficult to ascertain statistical records of how heritage tourism is doing in the country because of the way in which tourism surveys are conducted. For example, a table in appendix two of the SA Tourism 2013 report lists five categories under the title ‘Purpose of Visit’.
These categories include leisure, business, medical, religion, and other. Similar categories are used by Statistics South Africa. At an address to the Cape Town Press Club in November 2012 on “The state of Travel and Tourism in South Africa” Minister of Tourism, Mr Marthinus Van Schalkwyk, noted that it was the aim of the department to place more focus on South Africa’s heritage and cultural offerings (Van Schalkwyk, 2012). In May of the same year the Department of Arts and Culture and the Department of tourism held a committee meeting in which they discussed the above. It was noted that while South Africa had a vast array of cultural and heritage offerings, the primary tourism market has consistently focused on safari-type and natural environment-based tourism (pmg.org.za). Thus while heritage tourism has persisted as a niche market, South African tourism has begun a dialogue to expand that market. The Northern Cape branding strategy is discussed further in the chapter
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as is an overview of tourism at Wildebeest Kuil. Both sections should be read in terms of the broader contexts described here.
On responsible and sustainable tourism development
In response to the requirements for tourism growth in the country, the Tourism White Paper (DEAT, 1996) proposed ‘responsible tourism’ as the essential guiding principle for tourism development. This is an approach to tourism which encourages responsible trade union practices, responsible employment practices and furthermore:
…promotes responsibility to the environment through its sustainable use;
responsibility to involve local communities in the tourism industry; responsibility for the safety and security of visitors and responsible government, employees, employers, unions and local communities. (DEAT, 1996:np)
The implication of this approach is an interconnection of responsibility in which employers, employees and the consumer are linked. Reciprocal goodwill, respect and enrichment are encouraged. Responsibility to the environment is promoted through tourism that is focussed on “the development of environmentally based tourism activities” while at the same time allowing for “the protection of biodiversity on land used for its purpose” (DEAT, 1996:np).
The imperative is one of sustainable tourism development described in the Tourism White Paper as “tourism development, management and any other tourism activity which optimise the economic and other societal benefits available in the present without jeopardising the potential for similar benefits in the future” (ibid).
Originating from the more general ‘sustainable development’ which grew prominent in the 1980s sustainable tourism is predicated on the World Commission on Environment and Development report (Brundtland, 1987) which foregrounded the vision of economic development with a social conscience in terms of environmental impacts. This includes economic growth with a responsibility to both inter- and intra-generational equity (Garrod &
Fyall 1998; Hughes 1995). Sustainable tourism is often cited as an answer to the challenge of
“how to integrate cultural heritage and tourism management needs in a process that will result in a product that is appealing to visitors, while at the same time conserving cultural and heritage values” (McKercher & Du Cros, 2002:171). Even so, ‘sustainability’ means different
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things to different groups of people, and “has been used by different groups to promote completely opposing agendas” (ibid; cf. McKercher 1993). To some, sustainability may have an economic function such that sites are managed largely for their use value and “heavy use of an asset can be justified as long as wealth is generated” (McKercher & Du Cros, 2002:171). To others, sustainability is a concept used to “promote an agenda opposing most uses, arguing that any use will invariably lead to its destruction” (ibid). Ideally, sustainability should include both conservation and use value in the management of cultural and heritage assets (sustainable tourism is discussed later in the chapter). At the same time, the partnership between these two cannot always be equal; in many cases cultural heritage management takes precedence over tourism management, especially where the cultural asset is fragile (ibid).
Over a decade has passed since the case was made for a growing recognition of “the sustainability imperative in tourism” (Garrod & Fyall, 1998:199). Since then the concept has developed exponentially and has found its way into state policy documents and tourism strategies around the world. In the South African case this includes the Tourism White Paper (DEAT, 1996), National Tourism Sector Strategy (NTSS) (2011), National Heritage and Cultural Tourism Strategy (NHCTS) (RSA, 2012a), and Rural Tourism Strategy (RSA, 2012b). A primary objective of the NHCTS (2012a) is to strike a balance between conservation and tourism goals (this strategy is detailed later in the chapter). The Rural Tourism Strategy (RSA, 2012b) adds to the definition of sustainable tourism development provided in the Tourism White Paper (DEAT, 1996) and cited above.
According to the strategy sustainable tourism is “tourism attempting to make a low impact on the environment and local culture, while helping to generate future employment for local people” (RSA, 2012b:9). The inclusion of local communities in tourism activities and products through meaningful economic relationships becomes the responsibility of government and the private sector. This may be accomplished via the training and employment of local community members as workers at tourist attractions in proximity to their community, or via contracts to supply fresh produce, textiles, arts and crafts and other required commodities for the running of the attraction. In this kind of relationship, tourism producers are encouraged to “respect, invest in and develop local cultures and protect them from over-commercialisation and over-exploitation” (DEAT, 1996:np). Local communities, in turn, are made responsible for becoming “actively involved in the tourism industry, to
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practice sustainable development and to ensure the safety and security of visitors” (ibid).
There is also responsibility expected of the tourist to “observe the norms and practices of South Africa, particularly with respect to the environment and culture of the country” (ibid).
In 2002, the goals of the White Paper were further articulated in the government’s Responsible Tourism Guidelines document (DEAT, 2002). While visitors to Wildebeest Kuil might adhere to norms of responsible practices (besides the occasional littering school group) it is evident that the host communities do not (cf. Chapter Four).
Concerns and problematics
The growth of cultural tourism coincided with the emergence of a broader concern for cultural heritage management; a “societywide [sic] appreciation of the need to protect and conserve our dwindling cultural and heritage assets” (McKercher & Du Cros, 2002:2). It became apparent, however, that cultural tourism proved double-edged. On the one hand, the increased demand by tourists provided an economic and political justification for conservation. On the other hand, “the increased visitation, overuse, inappropriate use” and disregard for the cultural and heritage value of sites posed a threat to the integrity and at times the survival of sites (ibid). Advocates of cultural heritage management began, around this time “to promulgate policies to protect cultural values from inappropriate tourism uses”
(ibid; ICOMOS 1976). Cultural tourism and cultural heritage management thus became sectors operating in parallel but seldom in partnership. Partnerships are not impossible as cultural tourism can achieve the objectives of cultural heritage management; however, while this partnership is supported theoretically it is seldom practiced.
The achievement of duel objectives proves elusive in that one set of values is often sacrificed for another; tourism values, for example, may be compromised to ensure that the cultural integrity of assets is preserved (McKercher & Du Cros, 2002). The cultural tourism sector, therefore, may be said to operate “at a suboptimal level, failing to achieve either its tourism or cultural heritage management potential fully” (2002:2). Certainly, sustainability can occur
“only when the practice of trading off one set of values for another ceases and, instead, tourism and cultural heritage management interests work toward the achievement of common goals” (2002:2–3). This undertaking is complicated by a lack of understanding concerning the role played by each ‘opposing’ sector and the sentiment that both sectors “work toward different and mutually incompatible goals” (2002:3).
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Copious research on sustainability in tourism has focussed on conceptualisations of the term and the ways in which these impact the principles and practices of tourism (Garrod & Fyall, 1998). Of the plethora of definitions of sustainable tourism “it can be argued that unless these definitions can be translated into something that is meaningful in practice they remain, at best, mere academic curios, at worst, a threat to the achievement of genuinely sustainable tourism” (1998:200). Garrod and Fyall (1998) cite McKercher’s (1993:131) argument that the concept of sustainability in tourism, having been taken up by “both industry and the conservation movement to legitimize and justify their existing activities and policies”, is now fractured in two distinctly opposing strategy types, one development-orientated and the other ecologically-minded. Development/conservation conflicts are thus exacerbated.
Furthermore, much of the guidelines and codes of practice of sustainable tourism have been set out in so simple and vague a way that “[t]he adopter is actually left little further forward in going about the task of implementing a plan of action that will address the sustainable tourism imperative” (Garrod & Fyall, 1998:202). According to Garrod and Fyall (1998) global guidelines and codes of practice often lack specific targets and “the metrics required to operationalise” them (ibid). They argue that the tourism industry is threatened by the vagueness of the term ‘sustainable tourism’. In terms of practice, George Hughes maintains that tourism strategies should “be developed, not simply in conjunction with the public, or through public participation, but as forms of community development” (1995:59). Although it is not clear if these communities are likely to participate in the tourism product as local communities are expected to in the South African context for example. The ethics Hughes calls for seems to be focussed on ecology and while this is imperative to the debt owed to future generations it does not speak to the complexities of marginalised communities as hosts in the tourism product. This requires a larger set of parameters in terms of the ethics of sustainable tourism, a set of parameters fundamental to the South African case study.
Opportunities generated from developing sites such as Wildebeest Kuil for public access may include community employment and economic growth; the expectations of these however, need to be realistic and circumspect. Based on the Wildebeest Kuil experience, David Morris, Bafana Ndebele and Petrus Wilson (2009) question the extent to which niche market heritage sites should be considered as sustainable job creation opportunities in the first instance. At best, these kinds of projects have marginal prospects, although these may be enhanced “if