Michael Wines
New York Times
Friday, April 2, 2004
Excerpt:
Full Article Here
The British are coming to South Africa: 463,000 of them last year, up 45 percent in the last five years. So are the Germans: an increase of more than 50 percent since 1998. The Chinese may be the fastest-growing segment of all: More than 33,000 visited in 2003, an increase of almost 30 percent in a year.
And Americans? They have not come - not in the numbers dreamed of by South African hoteliers, restaurateurs and safari operators, who have now set about to change that.
South Africa is pursuing the American tourist - the last big game, so to speak, to elude this nation's increasingly savvy tourism industry. Last month, the government tourism office opened a Web site, www.southafrica.net/heritage, aimed at black and white Americans intrigued by the country's lush culture and uplifting recent history, and commercials extolling its charms are playing on U.S. television.
The idea, says Prudence Solomon Inzerillo, president of South African Tourism: U.S.A., is to broaden the nation's appeal beyond its base of aging baby boomers to a new, pick-up-and-go class of younger American urbanites who want a new thrill.
"They've heard of South Africa, but they're not quite sure what it holds," she said in a telephone interview from her Manhattan office. "Most Americans have a hard time with Africa. If something negative happens, they think it is happening all over the continent." The challenge, she said, is to separate South Africa's generally upbeat story from some of southern Africa's more problematic ones.
On the face of it, South Africa does not seem such a hard sell to Americans. This is Africa's first-world outpost - an effusively friendly English-speaking land with a rich mix of European and African culture, heart-stopping scenery and sophisticated food.
But, as for many tourist-hungry nations, Americans are a difficult sell these days. The threat of terrorism has affected travel by Americans far more than those from other countries; the U.S. economy also has been a factor...
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