Sometimes we have to weep for Brand South Africa. It tries so hard through our underfunded International Marketing Council (IMC) and South African Tourism to portray this country as the great global travel destination that it is, only to have Government upset the apple-cart time and time and time again.
The latest act of authoritarian idiocy comes from our notorious Department of Home Affairs that has decided not to allow cruise liners to dock at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town but rather in a dingy corner of the commercial dockyard.
The reason, a department functionary told e.tv with quite astounding arrogance and Mugabesque body language, was that in the interests of national security, passengers aboard cruise liners could not just enter South Africa through an undesignated point of entry but had to go through the one and only immigration building that exists.
It is quite astounding how completely ignorant some government departments are when it comes to customer service. It is even more astounding how few government departments do their homework before making these completely insane statements.
If the Department of Home Affairs had taken the trouble to pick up the phone and have a hal- hour chat to any one of the many agents for global cruise liners in SA, they would very quickly have found a simple solution .
The most common practice employed by tourist destinations in the world is to request that passengers all hand their passports in to the ship's purser at the beginning of the cruise. Then, before entering foreign ports, immigration officials come aboard and check every single passport and, if necessary, the detailed passenger information that the cruise company has on file.
Gobsmackingly easy
Then, when the thousands of passengers disembark, instead of having to stand in lengthy queues, they simply go through a security check which is also quite simple because every passenger is issued with cruise-ship identity card that doubles as a door key, charge card on board and ID to get through security as they come back on board. The whole process of embarking and disembarking takes no more than a few minutes.
It is a stunningly simple and efficient system that allows many cruise liners to moor practically in the middle of cities such as Venice, Istanbul, Athens, Vancouver and dozens of others.
Heaven knows what passengers are going to think in future when they arrive in Cape Town, which they have been told is one of the world's most beautiful cities - and then their ship ties up at a tatty dock in a tatty commercial harbour and then have to stand in long queues while SA immigration officers carefully check to make sure that they are bona-fide rich travellers and not drug mules or terrorists.
It will be easier and quicker for a Zimbabwean refugee to wander across the border into SA than for a rich tourist to enter Cape Town.
This is just the latest of a host of Government gaffes that must make tourists and investors wonder what sort of Mickey Mouse country we are.
Surely it is not too much to ask any government department or minister just to have a friendly chat to someone at the IMC or SA Tourism about the affect the plans they are plotting will have on tourism?
Weather or not
Next we have the insane suggestion that no-one can talk about the weather unless SA Weather Services gives its permission.
Once again, a Government department is trying to stop losing bundles of money by creating a monopoly. And once again doing so without realising that, in this modern age of the interweb, it will be almost impossible to police this legislation.
It is stupid, insane, short-sighted and, most of all, makes us a laughing stock.
Shame, Brand South Africa, I wish you well in your battle - not against the enemies of the state but the enemy that is the state.
