{"id":737891,"date":"2023-12-12T14:29:44","date_gmt":"2023-12-12T12:29:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=737891"},"modified":"2025-05-07T15:30:17","modified_gmt":"2025-05-07T13:30:17","slug":"government-spends-r175-million-to-protect-tourists-ahead-of-the-festive-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/737891\/government-spends-r175-million-to-protect-tourists-ahead-of-the-festive-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Government&#8217;s R175 million plan to protect tourists ahead of the festive season"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Department of Tourism has spent R174.5 million in deploying 2,305 Tourism Monitors at key tourist attractions across South Africa to &#8220;supplement safety and security measures by the South African Police Service&#8221; (SAPS) ahead of the peak summer holiday period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;South Africa is a popular destination to local and international travellers; however, crime is an\u00a0unfortunate reality that has affected tourists,&#8221; said the department in a statement released on Tuesday, December 12th.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These monitors are said to be stationed at key entry points, national parks, and other tourist attractions throughout the country to provide assistance with tourism and &#8220;safety-related&#8221; matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The duties of these monitors include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Patrolling identified attractions and sites\/areas,<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Raise tourism awareness and provide information to tourists about attractions and the country,<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Report any crime incidents to SAPS and other relevant enforcement agencies,<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Assist in tourist victim support.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The Department of Tourism has been working with the SAPS through joint safety learning, awareness and development campaigns, vetting tourism monitors, having SAPS develop a unique coding system for crimes against tourists and creating a safety programme for the monitors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;While it is the mandate of the police to provide safety and&nbsp;security services, the Department of Tourism, all three spheres of government and the private sector&nbsp;have come together to do our part with additional measures to enhance tourist safety.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The number of monitors have been allocated as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Eastern Cape &#8211; 150<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Free State &#8211; 150<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Western Cape &#8211; 250<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Gauteng -100<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Limpopo -100<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>KwaZulu Natal &#8211; 200<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Mpumalanga &#8211; 220<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>North West &#8211; 100<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Northern Cape -70<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>iSimangaliso Wetland Park &#8211; 200<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Ezemvelo Nature Reserve &#8211; 150<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>SANBI Gardens &#8211; 130<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>ACSA Airports &#8211; 135<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>SANParks &#8211; 350<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Part of the National Tourism Safety Strategy, the department said that this initiative was developed by &#8220;all three spheres of government, the South African Police Service, the National\u00a0Prosecuting Authority and the private sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Read:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/716852\/big-questions-over-r33-million-trevor-noah-tourism-deal\/\">Big questions over R33 million Trevor Noah tourism deal<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As tourists ready themselves for the holiday season in South Africa, so do criminals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":462168,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,1],"tags":[1910,8039,3455],"class_list":["post-737891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","category-trending","tag-crime","tag-patricia-de-lille","tag-tourism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=737891"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737891\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":823428,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737891\/revisions\/823428"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=737891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=737891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=737891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}