Born out of a process that included struggling with the definition of “rural”, considering village-based tourism in Jamaica and learning from past white-elephant projects, the department of tourism this week launched its strategy for rural tourism. Now it just needs to convince everyone else to cough up the money to make it a reality.
The strategy is simple: by drawing adventurous tourists away from the usual attractions on to less beaten, economically marginal tracks, you can double the number of visitors before 2020. Involve local communities with the attractions and subsidiary services that get tourists through the door, and you could just create a self-sustaining cycle of development. It will require neither the capital needed for mining, nor does it have the seasonal nature of agriculture, essentially the only other tools available for rural economic development.
“When we’re dealing with developing these tourist products, the money doesn’t come from us,” said Leonore Beukes, chief director for product and enterprise development at the department. “Mostly we’re looking at playing a co-ordinating role. Sometimes we’ll help motivate for why money should come from a provincial government, sometimes we’ll be working with other departments like basic education or arts and culture, and sometimes we’ll be trying to attract the private sector.”
Among other things, the strategy translates into developing “iconic projects” in regions that could both do with the money and have some unique appeal.
The trick is to do so without building tourist traps that cannot last, making unrealistic marketing promises and spending money unless absolutely necessary.
Just how acute the shortage of resources is — when developing rural tourism will require new and improved infrastructure, training, marketing and promotion, research and development — becomes apparent in the budget.
Just more than R76-million is set aside to achieve various objectives. R40-million of that will go to transport, mostly roads, and even the department admits that the amount does not buy a whole lot of tarmac.