The Department of Tourism will roll out 2 300 safety monitors to patrol tourist hotspots ahead of the upcoming peak season, backed by technology to ensure visitor safety.

Briefing the media in Cape Town after the National Tourism Safety Forum’s second meeting yesterday (Tuesday, August 29), Tourism Minister Patricia de Lille, provided progress on ensuring the safety of visitors while in the country.

The Safety Forum, made up of representatives from organisations across the private sector, the nine provincial MECs responsible for tourism, the National Prosecuting Authority, the South African Police Service, Airports Company South Africa and the Departments of Tourism and Transport, meets quarterly to discuss issues impacting tourists’ experience of the country.

While De Lille said most visitors left South Africa having had a positive experience, “issues of safety remain an obstacle to convert would-be tourists to visit our country”.

De Lille said her department had invested R174 million (€8.5m) in the current financial year to train 2 300 tourism monitors who will increase visibility at identified tourist sites.

Crime hotspots have been mapped, and the monitors will be deployed to hotspots across all nine provinces between late October and early November, ahead of the summer tourist season.

“The key responsibilities of the appointed Tourism Monitors include patrolling within the identified attractions and site/areas, raising tourism awareness and providing information to tourists and reporting any crime incidents to SAPS and other relevant enforcement agencies.”

She said the monitors would undergo accredited training and five days of training with SAPS in various police techniques.

They will also be backed by technology, including a CSIR-designed C-More tracking device, which will be used to track the monitors for their own safety and monitor their movements around the identified tourism sites.

The Tourism Business Council of South Africa has also developed a safety app called Secura. It will allow the monitors and visitors who have downloaded it to connect to affordable medical care and emergency service providers in an emergency situation. The app will be backed by an operations centre to be launched this week.

Chairman of the Safety Forum, Michael Tollman, said the app was especially useful for self-driving tourists who might get lost, or for older travellers who wanted the comfort of medical assistance being easily available, as the average response time was six minutes.

De Lille said technology was also being deployed to assist in prosecutions in cases involving international tourists. She said the NPA had indicated that President Cyril Ramaphosa had assented to legislation allowing for evidence to be presented in court via video link-up. While this legislation has been in place since last year, De Lille said, as a result of the pandemic, more courts now had access to the technology which would allow tourists who had been victims of crime to return home, but still give evidence electronically.

Additional measures announced by De Lille include community engagements so that they can “understand the value of tourism and be brought on board to help grow the tangible benefits of tourism in their areas”. She will also meet with the diplomatic community to brief them on the work being done on safety.

CEO of the Tourism Business Council of South Africa, Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa said: “We have many socio-economic challenges that are well known and we operate in that context as the tourism industry.” He said tourist safety was an important consideration, and the work being done now was to prepare fully for the upcoming peak season.