Mr Speaker, hon colleagues, Africans are the pioneers of the travel industry. About two million years ago some of our ancestors became curious about what was on the other side of the hill and started moving northwards out of the area we call the Cradle of Humankind.
We evolved into different colours and cultures, speaking in different tongues. We populated the world. Africa is in the DNA of all travellers, which is probably why nine and a half million visitors came to South Africa last year.
We have so much to offer the world, but sometimes we make it unnecessarily difficult for our visitors, both foreign and domestic, to enjoy our sites. It takes determination for the most intrepid traveller to find Maropeng, the tourist and scientific centre built to illustrate humankind's evolution and journey from the heart of Africa.
Maropeng is a major tourist facility in the Cradle of Humankind, but visitors battle to find it because the Gauteng provincial roads department felt it was unnecessary to erect directional road signs. Those tourists who don't give up the search tend to arrive at Maropeng in a foul temper and vent their anger on the centre staff. Maropeng was opened with much fanfare at the end of 2005. Years of pleading by its management through all the official channels failed to get road signs erected. In desperation, earlier this year, Maropeng's management resorted to launching a public petition. This approach galvanised the roads department to make and erect appropriate tourist signage to Maropeng. By the end of June, all the signs should be in place and visitors to the Cradle of Humankind should be able to find their way to Maropeng without difficulty.
The point this illustrates is that while we build world-class tourist facilities we fail to energise all those involved in the tourism chain to grasp the importance of their link in the process. Bureaucratic inertia, illustrated by this example, sabotages the efforts of our tourism industry. It introduces an unnecessary hassle factor into the travel experience, which sours the memory.
South Africa is fortunate that next year's captive market of football fans for the Fifa Soccer World Cup will cushion us from this shrinking global tourism market. But we have to ensure that this major marketing opportunity for South African tourism beyond 2010 is not squandered through bureaucratic indifference. This means addressing two of the nation's major issues - crime and quality health care.
The World Economic Forum's 2009 Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report ranked South Africa a dismal 128 out of 133 countries when it comes to safety and security. On health, we are ranked 94th for our low doctor density and sanitation standards. These are major inhibitors. Visitors who believe their health and safety is at risk will go elsewhere. We cannot be complacent and assume that our natural wonders and world-class tourist showpieces are automatic drawing cards for the world's tourism revenue.
Making tourism a success in South Africa is not merely the responsibility of the Minister of Tourism. Its success and the realisation of its full potential is related to South Africa becoming a winning nation in all respects.
The new Minister must ensure that co-operation between all spheres of government spreads an understanding that tourism and its allied activities generate more wealth and employment in the mining industry, and that each of us must willingly play our role, however small, to encourage visitors to return.
I was pleased to see that the Minister remarked on increased air travel on his to-do list, but he must persuade his colleagues and Transport to revise policies that restrict the airline industry from offering cheaper and more frequent flights to many more long-haul tourists who visit South Africa. Changing our attitude towards the airline industry could be strategic in ensuring that visitors to Africa use South Africa as the most economical gateway to the continent's attractions. The United Nation's World Tourism Organisation's recent research on Africa found that the continent was disadvantaged, among other things, by high air transport costs. We must capitalise on that. [Applause.]