The development of cultural and heritage tourism in Cape Town’s historic District Six is hamstrung by a myriad of problems, including a lack of formal planning and funding for tourism, delays in the restitution of the land and the dire socio-economic needs of the community involved.
These are some of the findings of Sirhan Jessa, a researcher at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), who is studying the long-term benefits that tourism could bring to this community. About 60 000 people were forcibly removed from District Six under apartheid. Since 1994, efforts have been made to return or compensate the original residents and their families. As no tourism development plans exist at present, Jessa’s research aims to develop a theoretical model for appropriate tourism development for the area. It aims to identify solutions for current problems of funding, skills development and stakeholder engagement.
“District Six lends itself to a number of exciting tourism development opportunities but given the historical context of forced removals and the demand for land restitution and social justice, few commercial developments are appropriate,” says Jessa. “I believe that cultural and heritage tourism is appropriate. Returning residents can have meaningful work inside a heritage setting and long-term skills development and job creation can begin to rectify the wrongs of the past.”
The study finds that, first of all, the land restitution process must be fast-tracked, while the role of CPUT, which now occupies nearly 40% of the land in District Six, must be clarified. “The promise was that the land restitution process would be complete in 2015 but we are very far from that. Healing, reconciliation and repatriation need to start happening,” says Jessa.
His research finds that tourism development in District Six requires political consensus on a tourism development plan, a difficult task given the emotionally charged environment. He says massive financial investment is needed from national government, the City of Cape Town and business partners but warns against the commercialisation of the site (e.g. a theme park). He recommends that the District Six Museum should lead the implementation of any future tourism development plan, which needs to be integrated into the existing overall redevelopment framework for the area.
Jessa’s study proposes that oral history and cultural traditions be collected from former residents and that a themed heritage walk be developed. He stresses the importance of developing world-class facilities, such as tourism and retail precincts, craft markets for informal traders, workshops and studios to encourage creative spaces.
Jessa points out that cultural and heritage tourism is one of the fastest growing tourism sectors internationally but is still underperforming in South Africa. “It’s because we don’t have enough authentic products, we’re not targeted enough in our marketing approach and the products are not sophisticated enough,” he says.
