Domestic tourism prospects have received a significant boost through a joint partnership between government and business.
THE leisure and hospitality sector, in the south of Johannesburg, is gearing up for a bumper summer season.
Improved prospects follows the reopening of the Vaal River for business following months of closure due to an invasion of aquatic weed.
In October last year, an invasive aquatic weed called “water lettuce” (pistia stratiotes) invaded the Vaal River, and within a matter of months it had covered 398 hectares of this stretch of tourism rich stretch of river.
The consequences of this were devastating as the water lettuce crippled tourism. Several land and boat operators closed as activity simply dried up for most Vaal River businesses since the river became no longer navigable.
The tourism operators along this stretch of the Vaal range from large operators such as Southern Sun, Tsogo Sun (Emerald Casino and Resort) – to dozens of smaller tourism businesses including lodges, boutique hotels, guest houses, pubs, golf, boat and fishing clubs, picnic spots, house boats and commercial boat operators.
On Saturday, the Vaal River celebrated the reopening of the boating season after the hospitality industry on the Vaal spent more than R10 million self-funding this aquatic weed removal.
Fedhasa, an association for the hospitality industry, facilitated a meeting with the Department of Water and Sanitation and Rand Water (DWS) in early January 2024, and managed to remove all the aquatic weed through a partnership between the government and the community on the Vaal River.
Rosemary Anderson, Fedhasa national chairperson, on Saturday said the tourism businesses that were affected by this will now be trading again. Saturday marked the official opening of the boating season.
Anderson said DWS had appointed Rand Water as the implementing agent and allocated R42m to ensure the river stays aquatic weed free over the next three years.
“We physically extracted the aquatic weed. We did it with excavators. It took us from January till about July. The losses suffered by businesses during that time run into hundreds of millions maybe. It was devastating,” Anderson said.
“We must be one of the richest tourism spots in South Africa. Where else can you go on a luxury houseboat and play golf every day at a different golf course and stay on the boat and go by boat? And where can you go in a water taxi that takes you from pub to pub?
“It's wonderful that the river is now open because we can do what we do best now. We can create jobs, add to the economy. And that's the biggest thing in South Africa is the lack of jobs.”
Scientists said that this was the fastest coverage of this invasive weed they had ever seen in the history of invasive aquatic weed in South Africa.
Dr Anet Muir, chief director for water use compliance and enforcement at DWS, said they had partnered with Rand Water, the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, Rhodes University and the Centre for Biocontrol, for a comprehensive proactive strategy to never allow the Vaal river to be disabled like it was earlier this year.
Muir said three community rearing stations and one station at Rand Water had been set up to rear various biological control agents - weevils and hoppers - as host specific feeders, which is part of a long-term biological control and ongoing natural control mechanism.
“Our biggest challenge was to be able to respond as quickly as we should have because the problem with the invasives is that they're the best example of compound interest. Every other day they multiply. Every nine days they double their mass. So if in January we'd been able to respond it would have been a small amount,” Muir said.
“We did slip up, we dropped the ball. The biological controls that were supposed to be here was delayed. But Rand Water has now, in their nursery, built tanks. So they take some of the plants here and then they receive insects from Rhodes University and they grow them here. We are going to start putting insects so that in a smaller tributary you can control it before it gets into a bigger river where it's very difficult to control.”
Nombulelo Guliwe, CEO for South African Tourism, hailed the partnership between the government and business, saying they were happy that the revival of the Vaal River was also happening during Tourism Month.
“The fact that Rand Water is involved, the fact that you have colleagues from the trade and the private sector that are involved, and working hard to fix a very integral part of our domestic tourism, it's a good story to tell,” Guliwe said.
“I think we don't tell the stories of when we win and we get things right as the public and private sector. Because this area, the Vaal River, plays an important part in the tourism sector, especially in the domestic tourism sector.
BUSINESS REPORT