Glynis O’Hara
`TOURISTS these days are less interested in theme parks and special events than in experiencing other ways of life.” So says Carol Steinberg, Director of Arts and Culture.
Commenting on last week’s National Conference on Cultural Tourism in Cape Town, hosted by the Department of Arts and Culture, she says one of the key aspects has been defining ways to make our domestic cultural life accessible to tourists.
Shebeens are an example. Where to go, how to get there and back at night as well as feel safe, are the questions most commonly asked.
“But a lot of it is making quite simple resources available, like a 100-page cultural catalogue for the whole country for the year.
“A lot of people in the tourist industry who were there say that tourists ask for these things and they don’t know how to supply them.”
A book on aspects of South African culture and a practical guide to cultural projects that can be visited by tourists, commissioned by the department, is due out next month.
More complicated things are needed too, like a new generation of trained tour guides. Transport is obviously another problem. “Culture” doesn’t just mean art galleries, music clubs and museums either. It also has to include contemporary urban culture.
Delegates from places like Australia, the United States, the Netherlands and India attended. “Australia is a case in point,” says Steinberg.
“Twenty years ago it had a nebulous culture, stuck in British post-colonial mode. But it has put itself on the map with film, music and writing and there has been a spin-off in tourism.
“It used to be marketed as a wildlife destination, as South Africa is, but it’s increasingly a cultural destination as well.”
Aboriginal culture is included, she says, through things like crafts and artefacts, visiting Aboriginal villages and Aboriginal centres in cities.
She adds, however, that the concept can not be allowed to pervert reality just for the sake of tourism.
Research has been commissioned to look at what actually exists, what the blockages are in the tourism industry and where the government can intervene to help, she says.