Crime still keeping potential visitors out of South Africa

Although South Africa has been enjoying a huge increase in tourism these past years, the long standing reputation for petty crime is still keeping at least a third of potential visitors away, and the rising numbers of camera-toting sock and sandled tourists is only encouraging muggers to relieve the poor buggers of their recently exchanged notes and their newly-purchased Nikons.

South Africa’s Tourism Minister, Marthinus van Schalkwyk addressed the issue in a speech to tourism industry leaders recently: “Crime is an issue we as industry have to deal with if we want to reach our target of 10 million arrivals by 2010.”

This goal of reaching 10 million visitors isn’t so unrealistic as the country campaigns hard for visitors leading up to hosting of the FIFA World Cup of Football in 2010. Already, the wildlife, culture and relative affordability saw 8.4 million tourists flutter through the gates in 2006.

The government has promised to hire significantly more police to try to curb any attacks on tourists and a new safety and awareness strategy is being ironed out. Even with all these measures, it may be a while before the country’s reputation for crime, especially in the infamous Johannesburg can be turned around.