Tourism Citichat 12 October 2001

CITICHAT 40/2001 12 October 2001


Tourism

"R10m boost for Joburg". On face value the front page of the last week's Saturday Star looked like some more good news for the city, According to the article, a tourism body is to be established to "aggressively market the city which will host (ie at the Earth Summit) more than 135 heads of state and 60 000 delegates from around the world." This tourism structure will evidently focus on the city's heritage. Of course the 'city' is not the Inner City or even the CBD, but covers the whole Metropolitan area. Thus the article talks about Melville Koppies, Klipriviersberg in the south and Klipspruitberg in Soweto, sites relating to the Anglo-Boer War, a struggle route taking in Nelson Mandela's former house in Orlando West, the Hector Pietersen Memorial and the Walter Sisulu Centre. The Inner City does get a mention in relation to "the area around the Mai-Mai bazaar, the Newtown area and the Constitutional Hill precinct". There is of course a whole lot more that the Inner City can contribute in terms of heritage which I hope is not being lost sight of! But I wonder if R10 million can do more than scrape the surface following the years of neglect to this aspect of the city!?

For the Inner City has been sadly neglected for the last decade in relationship to its tourist potential. Johannesburg Tourism, mainly funded by the Council, moved out of the city years ago to establish itself in Sandton leaving a single office in the Carlton Centre. With the demise of this organisation even that one office has gone. The Gauteng Tourism Agency set up its offices in Rosebank. The reason for the establishment of tourism organisations outside of the Inner City is always glibly given as that they must have offices where the tourists are - which is of course right in principle but, sadly, nothing is done about establishing a process that will lead to tourists visiting the city. Crime is always given as the excuse, “who would want to come to the CBD?” Yet, over the years, our organisation has constantly been approached by various bodies, businesses and embassy/consulates to act as city ‘tour guides’. Typical request from an Embassy; "we have this group of architects from our country (for architects read planners, engineers, city officials, businesspeople) whom we have been trying to dissuade from visiting the city because it is unsafe. But the idiots insist. Could you put on a walking/driving tour that will help them understand the changes and dynamics of the city and provide some of your security officers to accompany them?" We have always obliged and just sometimes the consular staff have even accompanied their charges. At the end of the tour they are effusively appreciative and wondering what the fuss was all about. We have something to sell – Johannesburg remains as the country’s crucible of change - a unique urban laboratory which, believe it or not is of great interest to many, many people from all over the world. Overcome their nervousness in regard to the perceptions of the city and they relax and are deeply engrossed in the story we tell and the quite intriguing environment we introduce them to.

In the last year or so, walking tours by groups such as Beryl Porter's 'Walk Tours' - www.walktours.co.za - have started to include the Downtown/CBD, and are an important tool in educating locals and visitors about the city as well as great fun.

In my rather quick visit to the USA last week I had some exposure to at least what one other city is doing in this aarena. I managed to squeeze a day-and-a-half in Washington DC for some meetings. One was with Kathy Schneider who runs the DC Heritage Tourism Coalition. The Coalition is a private sector driven consortium of more than 90 heritage, arts, community and cultural organisations 'dedicated to strengthening the image and economy of Washington DC.' Their members include historic house museums, neighbourhood historical societies, arts organisations, preservation groups, ethnic organisations, parks and gardens, art galleries, museums, historic houses of worship as well as business groups, tourism professionals and the hospitality industry. (Could this even happen here?). Everybody putting aside their parochial agendas for the good of the city. (I guess I’ve just answered my own question!) And by ‘good of the city’ I don't mean that they do this because they are philanthropic. Just consider these figures! 22 million people visit Washington DC every year, 61% of whom visit the city for its historical and cultural attractions which actually means that DC is the number one destination for heritage tourists in the States. They contribute $9 billion to the region of which $5,4 billion goes into the DC economy. That’s not small change! It sounds even more impressive when converted to rands, but we won’t do that exercise – nor one in Zim dollars! Yet very few of these 22 million visitors in fact go outside of the National Mall! Why? For the very same reason that they won't come to Downtown Joeys! They are scared because of the negative perceptions that the media have built around the city although the greatest proportion of their problems take place outside of the downtown! (My favourite quotation is still that of their immediate past mayor who said that if you remove the figures for murder, their crime stats don’t look at all bad!) So, the Coalition is working with its members to create new ways of experiencing the city's heritage and culture. Kathy agreed with me when I suggested that the only way to overcome bad perceptions is by bringing the people into the Downtown to see for themselves what is being done and what has been achieved. The City IS the Museum! What they are doing is to provide information about the city's treasures; use art and theatre to tell local stories and design and promote heritage trails. All of this also helps to instill a new sense of pride among their citizens. Kathy is working at drawing the 22 million visitors into the amazing smorgasbord that DC offers off the mall. Kathy, through the Heritage Tourism Coalition, has just produced a book, "Capital Assets" which is the result of her research into the tourist potential of neighbourhood heritage and cultural sites in Washington DC on the basis of (a) what is ready, (b) what is almost ready and (c) what could be ready. She has also classified aspects that have potential that is not fully realised, aspects that are in danger of disappearing altogether and lists of people with energy and ideas. Great stuff and a data base to work from that is priceless. A similar exercise here would be of more value than developing trails on an ad hoc basis.

From the information, the DC Heritage Tourism Coalition together with the Downtown DC Business Improvement District (yeah, CIDs!) has developed a heritage trail which is called ‘Civil War to Civil Rights’. What a story for a city to be able to tell through the medium of a walking tour!

But Johannesburg Downtown also has a story to tell that the world really wants to listen to and experience - we have so much to offer but the downtown is put down continually by ignorance, prejudice and negative perceptions. Like DC we can change this with a well developed strategy implemented by the many people who care and who love the city - but R10 million for the Metro area just as a reaction to the Earth Summit? Surely the downtown alone is worth more than that in terms of changing those perceptions, creating jobs, black empowerment, etc. etc. etc.? We have a once-off opportunity to 'raise the bar' through the Earth Summit but we must do it in a way that it remains a sustainable base to work from in the future and not just another event which has got to be coped with. We have to attract many times more than R10million if we are going to do the opportunity justice. I’m sure that business will dig deep because it will see the return but the public sector must show they are serious. Eleven months to go to the Summit and there is not even an agreed budget for the overall event although the calculation of the boost to the economy has been calculated as R1.3 billion! We need to leverage the R10million that the Council is allocating to the ‘city’ by a factor of 10 if we are really going to make a sustainable difference!