The background of the picture is dominated by Table Mountain, the tourism icon for this city and region, if not the entire South Africa. The foreground typifies the reality our people face on a daily basis. This picture indeed reinforces the notion that our collective responsibility as tourism practitioners is to ensure that we connect the foreground of this picture with the background of the mainstream tourism industry. This is our challenge and our mission.
Tourism contributes 9.8% to GRP and employs 140-160 000 people in the region. In 2004, for the first time in the history of our country, receipts from tourism overtook receipts from mining. Yet, whilst growth in numbers and yields is exceeding all our expectations, it is in the distribution of benefits, in the ownership and control of this industry and in the upliftment of communities that we face the greatest challenges. Eleven years into our democracy and less than 6% of this industry is owned and managed by persons of colour!
This is not acceptable. The uneven economic, demographic and geographic distribution of benefits and resources in the Tourism industry certainly need to be addressed.
In 2002 my department launched the Integrated Tourism Development Framework, which details the way in which we, the government and our partners, will develop tourism up to 2012. One of the 11 Tourism Development Areas identified in the study was the Greater Cape Flats area.
The Cape Flats was chosen because of the uniqueness of cultural and political heritage. This area was also chosen because the pre-1994 policies of Apartheid ensured the Cape Flats would have a difficult time maximising the opportunities or benefits offered not only by the Tourism Industry, but all forms of economic activity. It is this area that we are focussing on today.
However, before I proceed, I would like to to deal upfront with the question of safety for tourists on the Cape Flats. It is clear to me that communities understand the benefits of tourism. This is borne out by the fact that of the 102 incidents involving tourists reported to my department in the period 01 January 2005 - 11 December 2005 (i.e. the calender year to date) only one, I repeat only one, was an incident which involved tourists in a township. I am of course referring to the unfortunate incident in Khayelitsha last week.
I want to point out to you that the response of the community to this incident, where they assisted the police in making arrests within hours demonstrates their understanding of the value of tourism to their lives and area.
Indeed from an analysis of the reported incidents it is clear that only a fraction of those involving tourists occur in townships. It is time for our detractors to face reality and understand this.
Ladies and Gentlemen I would also like to believe that as government, our efforts and programmes are aimed at the re- integration of our city. Let us not fall into the trap of "eie -soortigheid" promulgated by Verwoedian regimes in the past.
South Africa belongs to all who live in it, and so I am concerned that a handful of operators are now making statements about access and control of access to the townships. To me this smacks of opportunism of the highest order. Your job as a tour operator is to gear yourself up with the correct skills, knowledge and most importantly attitude to ensure that indeed huge numbers of our visitors do indeed visit all parts of our city and region.
Ladies and Gentlemen tourism must become part of the Cape Flats and the Cape Flats must become part of tourism. Our communities understand this - it is time for the rest of us to follow suit.
But what is meant by the term, Cape Flats?
The physical boundary of the Cape Flats is defined by the City of Cape Town and is commonly known as the Metro South East Sector. It was felt that this boundary was historically too recent and would exclude understanding of other "boundaries", for example:
- The tourism industry follows different boundaries when earmarking tourism regions l
- The heritage sector does not merely look at spatial boundaries, but boundaries through "time".
- Restructuring the boundary to a cultural landscape and/or natural landscape does not work on a geo-political level.
Furthermore, the geographical understanding of "the Flats" varies according to the different historic periods and areas where people were removed to under Apartheid.
It was therefore decided to have a defined "core" area including Macassar, Khayelitsha, Mitchells Plain, Greater Philippi, Crossroads, Gugulethu, Nyanga, Langa, Manenberg, Lansdowne, Bonteheuwel, Greater Athlone, Woodstock, Salt-River and District Six but also include areas like, Grassy Park, Kalk Bay, Simons Town and Retreat.
In essence the wider "Cape Flats" definition would include any place that has historic, social, environmental, political and/or cultural connections to the history of forced removals in our region, because after all the Cape Flats was a political construct of its time.
The Cape Flats Tourism Framework aims to stimulate the folllwing:
- To promote the concept of the Cape Flats Area as a tourism region by drawing tour operators, local/provincial/national government departments, artists, cultural activists and tourism entrepreneurs into a collective effort towards developing tourism on the Cape Flats
- To foster a culture of tourism entrepreneurship through exposing a wide range of communities to informal, non formal and formal economic opportunities, through celebrating local arts, crafts, trades, music and food.
- To advocate for increased community participation through the skills development strategy and other means of economic stimulation through seed funding.
- To build of holistic and supportive new infrastructure based on partnerships, introduction of additional services and the improvement of existing infrastructure and services, including infrastructure to memorialise historical events.
- To add to the knowledge base of cultural heritage tourism through consultative tourism development processes such as these.
- To build a coalition for on-going tourism promotion on the Cape Flats through a core group comprising relevant roleplayers and stakeholders in the tourism and cultural heritage industry.
We want this initiative to be recognised as a vibrant and integrated contribution to inclusive, equitable, and sustainable growth and the betterment of society where benefits are equitably and transparently shared by all stakeholders - including indigenous people, youth, communities, investors and governments at all levels.
The Cape Flats Tourism Framework is a living document offered as a tool to assist with re-integration of our people into the mainstream of tourism, maximisation of the use of limited resources, development of sustainable tourism product and the creation of market access opportunities for all in our quest to improve the quality of life for our citizens.
Indeed we see the framework as an important part of our armoury to reach our vision of a growing sustainable tourism economy where the benefits are spread to all.
I Thank You.
