REPOST: "Tourism numbers show South Africa setting itself apart, says Zuma"

South Africa's unprecedented boom as a tourism hub has sparked an exciting discussion on the country's effective marketing strategies. Read this Business Day Live article to learn more:

President Jacob Zuma, second from right, at the V&A waterfront
after announcing the 2012 tourism figures on Thursday.
Image credit: Business Day Live

South Africa’s “phenomenal” growth in foreign tourism last year demonstrated that the country’s marketing efforts were on track, President Jacob Zuma said on Thursday as he announced a 10.2% rise in foreign arrivals.

In break with tradition, Mr Zuma and not the Minister of Tourism, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, announced the statistics at a media briefing in Cape Town.

According to the figures, South Africa outstripped the average global growth rate of about 4% as estimated by the UN World Tourism Organisation with strong year-on-year growth (33.7%) coming from Asia. Excluding Africa, which produced a 7.5% growth in tourists to South Africa last year, overseas tourist numbers rose by 15.1%, which was one of the highest growth rates in the world.

Mr Zuma attributed the success to the decision taken in 2009 to create a separate department of tourism which was subsequently identified as a key job-creating sector of the economy. The national tourism strategy envisages South Africa as among the top 20 world tourist destinations by 2020 and that the sector would create 225,000 additional jobs by then and contribute about R500bn to gross domestic product (GDP).

Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk told journalists that the infrastructure put in place for the 2010 World Cup had stood South Africa in good stead and it now had good facilities. South Africa’s participation in the grouping of Brazil, Russia, India and China (Brics) also had the huge potential to boost tourism. They accounted for 330,834 of the international tourist numbers last year.

The growing importance of tourism to the economy was highlighted by Statistics South Africa data which showed that in 2011 the direct contribution of tourism to GDP rose by 5% to R84.3bn — well above the 3.1% growth in the economy in 2011-12. Domestic tourism expenditure expanded to R101bn in 2011 from R69bn in 2010.

More updates on African tourism may be found on this Palace Travel Facebook page.

Robben Island: A bastion of justice and a testament to the human spirit

Image Source: travel.nationalgeographic.com

Between the 17th and 20th century, Robben Island holds a repute of unrivaled infamy. It was a hellhole—a maximum security prison for political prisoners, a wastebasket where people not accepted by society are thrown into, and a field where the military trains and rules overpoweringly.

What remains in the islands are vestiges of its troubled past: quarries from the 17th century, Hadije Kramat’s tomb, ruins of what used to be a leper colony, a 19th century village complete with administrative buildings and a parsonage, WWII military structures, and a small lighthouse. These are all but reminders of South Africa’s Apartheid regime, a racial segregation system which was enforced by National Party (NP) governments. The regime’s philosophies, which touched almost all aspects of life in South Africa, curtailed the rights of all black inhabitants and upheld the white supremacy mentality. In this state, native Africans became a minority in their own homeland, and Robben Island all stood witness to these atrocities.

Image Source: -cs-students.stanford.edu

In a fortunate twist of fate, all of these came to an end in the 1990s when the regime has been finally overturned by South Africa’s citizenry. All of the political prisoners were released, and after many years of being incarcerated in the land of their birth, they finally got to experience the sweetness of freedom.

For all that it was and has become, Robben Island is a fitting testament to the human spirit—a witness to the power of democracy and its triumph over racism and oppression.

Image Source: dreamcatchermarketingllc.com

Africa, despite having a tumultuous history, also holds its fair share of hopeful stories. Get to discover them by visiting this Palace Travel Facebook page.