The worst marketing job ever done - SA as a holiday destination

So alright, no good kidding ourselves, we do have a crime problem. But hey, I've just come back from Dallas where the local TV news featured a story on restaurants closing down. Not from lack of customers but from repeated break-ins. And how come everyone there has an alarm on their house?

Lack of information

More than anything, it's the complete lack of information on SA that's staggering. I even met your typical American (who was actually German but had lived there for around 30 years) who said when he heard I was from SA, that he knew the capital of SA, no, I wasn't to tell him, err, “it was carved out of a jungle”.

At this point I did mention we didn't have any jungles - “No, don't tell me, it's on the tip of my tongue - Sun City, that's it.” Sad but true.

So that's a funny story but what's not funny is the way ex-pat South Africans continually put down their homeland. While in the US, I heard from numerous people that South Africans had told them:

• That it wasn't safe to walk on the streets in SA
  
• That there was no way we could hold a decent FIFA World Cup
  
• SA was such a backward nation
  
• ALL our politicians were corrupt - somehow they ignored what was on their own back yard here
  
• There were very few real houses - mainly shacks
  
• There are riots every day
  
• You needed bodyguards to go out of your house

What is being done

The sad thing is what is being done to educate people overseas, especially with 2010 looming. I tell you what - virtually nothing or at least nothing I've seen in my travels.

On my recent flight back from Atlanta, the plane was full, mostly with Americans. But were they coming to stay in Johannesburg. Oh no - not Johannesburg. The ones I spoke to were either catching immediate connecting flights to Botswana or staying close to the airport 'til they could catch flights out the next day.

We should have offices all over the US and Europe pumping out good news stories about our wonderful game parks and coastal resorts, not to mention the overwhelming beauty both within and surrounding SA.

I keep reading about people being appointed to jobs marketing this country. Well, so far, guys and gals, I'm sorry but you're just not cracking it. It's not so much marketing the good stuff but simply taking away the fear that the name South Africa conjures up.