By Stephanie Saville
South Africa is potentially losing out on 125 000 jobs which could be created by overseas tourists, who are currently too scared to visit the country because of the threat of crime.
A survey conducted last week found that 75 percent of foreign tour operators said they would send at least 50 percent more people to South Africa if crime was not a factor in choosing it as a destination.
The survey was conducted by Southern African Tourism Update, an independent monthly trade magazine distributed to the travel industry abroad to promote the region as a destination.
In conjunction with the South African Tourism Services Association and other tourism organisations, the survey was conducted over three days last week, polling 620 organisations engaged in tourism related to SA. Of these, 120 were based abroad.
The editor of the magazine, Natalia Thomson, said only 7 percent of the respondents said that crime was never or hardly raised as a concern when South Africa was mentioned as a destination to prospective tourists. A worrying trend was that 203 respondents said that 81 percent to 100 percent of potential tourists were concerned about crime here.
Asked if the recent murder of KwaZulu-Natal battlefield tourism expert David Rattray would affect their market, 515 said "yes".
"When asked to prioritise how South Africa should invest its effort in overcoming hurdles to tourism, ranging from health to air access, 63 percent of travel trade respondents in Europe said solving the crime problem was most important; in the UK it was 76 percent and 85 percent in North America," she said.
Thomson said that conclusions from the survey showed that crime was holding back the growth of the tourism sector and its ability to create jobs.
"South Africa is such an attraction compared with other destinations that, despite its problems, the number of foreign visitors grew by 7 percent in the first nine months of 2006 to almost 1,5 million, according to Statistics SA."
Final statistics for the year would probably show a record of over 2m foreign visitors, she said.
Thomson added, however, that if the sentiments of foreign tour operators were taken into account, this number should conservatively be at least 50 percent higher at 3m.
"If one tourism job is created by every eight visitors, then 125 000 new breadwinners could become part of the economy with a major impact on both them and their families."
Thomson said the survey, entitled "Where would tourism in South Africa be without crime?" had been their most popular. "We have done numerous surveys but were completely overwhelmed by the reaction and response to this particular one.
"However, we did not run this survey to highlight the prevalence of crime here, but to look at the opportunities which a lack of crime could afford the country."