A group of elderly Dutch tourists were robbed by an armed gang posing as police officers in Johannesburg on Sunday night.
The tour bus taking 36 tourists to their hotels from OR Tambo International Airport was pulled over by a marked police vehicle near Fourways. The tourists, all aged over 70, were robbed of their valuables by the gang.
The Minister of Police, Fikile Mbalula condemned the robbery and viewed it as an “attack on the tourism industry and the economy”.
“Tourism is part of our economic drivers and provider of jobs for the youth. We must work hard to protect this industry. Part of this is ensuring that our tourists not only feel safe but are safe in our country,” said Mbalula.
The robbery was reported in Dutch publication, Telegraaf with passengers describing the attack as “hell”. One passengers reportedly told the newspaper, “We are safe now. But we are in shock and want to go back. We just landed for a 22-day trip, but the fun has gone.”
On Sunday evening, the Southern Africa Tourism Services Association (Satsa) was alerted by the tour operator, Fairfield Tours, and carried out the necessary steps of contactinginsurance brokers for the tourism industry,SATIBto dispatch emergency assistance and also SAT to put a reaction team in place.
Juliane Loubser from Fairfield Tours, said that within 10 minutes of calling, Satsa CEO, David Frost, was able to co-ordinate a range of support networks, resulting in the process running very smoothly.
“The only positive thing about the situation was to see how well the core industry stakeholders work together in times of crisis,” said Loubser.
Frost said the association had responded quickly to the incident. “We need to sit with all the relevant government agencies and put our heads together to come up with a standard procedure to make sure we don’t find ourselves in this situation again,” he said.
South African Tourism declined to comment, referring all communication to the police.
0cm;background:white">Security at and from OR Tambo International Airport has recently been beefed up following several robberies.
“The OR Tambo International Airport is our national key point. We have done a lot of work to improve its safety and capacitate it to respond fast and effectively to safety concerns. More has been done since, in preventing and combating criminal activities at the airport,” said Mbalula.
He confirmed that robberies in and around the airport were being investigated. However, police could not confirm if the gang had followed the tourists from the airport.
