Fewer tourists have visited South Africa this year compared to 2018.
Stats SA says the number of international visitors to date declined by 1.4 percent.
The Tourism Business Council says restrictive policies played a part in the drop.
Tourism Business Council of South Africa CEO Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa says the country’s image abroad has been tainted by the recent violent attacks on foreign nationals.
“Our image internationally is tarnished if you talk to a lot of people. Remember, we have been operating in this business for the past 25 years with issues of crime and we’ve been navigating as an industry now with social media where everyone can report what’s going on.”
“We have to work even harder, our PR has to be even more robust, online presence, more robust so we can counter the messages that are going into the market. We need to put in more resources to be able to see more tourists coming into the country.”
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TV and radio personality LootLove has touched on the “opening up the industry” debate. Loot took to Twitter on Thursday afternoon to explain that it looks like when people finally make it inside the industry, they then become like everyone else and are reluctant to “open up the industry”.
“I’ve picked up that ‘open up the industry’ seems to only apply when outside the club… once y’all get in, it gets tricky. Very tricky. You almost become the same people you complained about,” she wrote. continue reading
Source: eNCA
