Minister of Tourism, Tokozile Xasa, today (October 17), launched the National Tourism Monitors Programme as part of a department initiative to enhance tourist safety and improve the visitor experience.

Speaking at the launch in Soweto, Xasa said involving the communities that live in a tourism destination to help ensure the safety of travellers was key to deterring tourist-targeted crime. The monitors will be recruited from, and placed in, the areas in which they reside to spearhead this ‘community watchdog’ approach to crime. Xasa added that the aim of the programme was for monitors to be visible and actively engage with travellers, sending the message that SA takes tourist safety seriously.

The monitors will also play a role in developing the tourism industry, identifying all tourist products in an area – regardless of how small – and assisting the department in curating their databases. This will allow the department to plug small enterprises into their marketing portal – creating greater opportunities for entrepreneurs. The department will also be able to assess and grade these products, offering tourists a wider variety of options and fast-tracking tourists to those products that prove to be of high quality.

Xasa added that the monitors would also assist in identifying the best transport routes that link the tourism products in their area, aggregating improved data for tour packaging.

Tourism Monitors will be trained in first aid, customer care, basic site tour guiding, life-saving, public safety and law.

The programme forms part of the government’s Expanded Public Works Programme, with training being facilitated by the Gauteng Tourism Authority. It will create 200 jobs for unemployed youths aged 18-35, who will receive accredited and non-accredited training, mentorship and work experience as monitors placed at a tourism destination for a 36-month period. Each participant will also receive a stipend and a uniform.

After this period, participants will be fast-tracked into those areas of the tourism industry for which they have shown the most promise. The programme aims to identify and mentor leaders among the group who will be encouraged to foster industry innovation.

The programme will pilot in Gauteng and then, if successful, be enacted nationwide. The pilot placement areas in Gauteng are:

• Sedibeng – 35 monitors
• Johannesburg area – 60 monitors
• Ekurhuleni – 35 monitors
• Tshwane – 35 monitors
• West Rand – 35 monitors