Gariep Dam is being positioned as a test case for turning inland water-based tourism potential into investment and wider local economic activity, with the Department of Tourism calling for projects that connect experiences with businesses, infrastructure, skills and markets.
Speaking at the second annual Coastal and Inland Waterways Tourism Investment Summit at Gariep Dam on 9 September, Deputy Tourism Minister Maggie Sotyu said the focus should be on moving beyond individual attractions and preparing projects that can attract investment while bringing surrounding communities and businesses into the visitor economy.
Water becomes economic infrastructure
Sotyu said inland tourism opportunities extend beyond the water itself, encompassing accommodation establishments, restaurants, guides, transport operators, event businesses, artisans and entrepreneurs.
She said a dam could become economic infrastructure when responsibly developed and connected to the surrounding destination.
“A dam may begin as water infrastructure, but when it is responsibly developed, packaged, and connected to the surrounding destination, it can also become economic infrastructure.”
She said this could create demand for accommodation, restaurants and local food, while opening opportunities for guides, boat operators, transport providers, event organisers, craftspeople and local producers.
The potential also extends to careers in safety, hospitality, maintenance, conservation, digital marketing and other tourism services.
“The water may be the attraction, but the economic opportunity extends far beyond the water.”
Investment needs viable projects
Sotyu said the central challenge was converting tourism potential into projects that are sufficiently prepared for investment.
“Natural beauty alone does not create a tourism economy. Potential must be converted into projects.”
She said projects must be properly prepared, infrastructure must be fit for purpose, safety and environmental requirements must be met, and investors must have confidence.
Products must also respond to real market demand, while operators need the necessary skills and destinations must be able to package, price, distribute and sell their experiences.
The Department's Destination Development Branch is playing an active role in planning and coordinating the summit, with the objective of identifying practical interventions to strengthen Gariep as an inland tourism and economic development zone.
The department's existing coastal and marine tourism work includes routes and events, regulation and permitting, spatial planning, tourism infrastructure, safety and skills development. Sotyu said inland waterways form part of the next phase of this work.
Gariep needs connected experiences
Sotyu said Gariep's development should connect water-based experiences with accommodation, conferencing, food, heritage, community experiences, recreation, events, nature and surrounding routes.
“We should ask ourselves how to turn Gariep Dam from a place travellers may pass through into a destination where they stop, stay, experience, spend, and return.”
She said the approach should involve creating bookable itineraries rather than isolated products.
Gariep could also act as a connector between tourism experiences in the Free State, Northern Cape and Eastern Cape, with the summit identifying potential for cross-provincial routes and partnerships.
Opportunities include waterfront infrastructure, boating, recreation, accommodation and community tourism.
Sotyu said the objective was for more tourism-generated money to circulate in communities around the destination, including through local spending on accommodation, food and experiences.
Cruise could anchor value chain
One of the concepts presented to the summit is a proposed community-based inland cruise enterprise.
Sotyu said the importance of the proposal was not simply the prospect of putting a vessel on Gariep Dam, but whether it could create opportunities for other businesses.
“The bigger question is whether such a project can anchor a wider local tourism value chain.”
The business case identifies opportunities before, during and after the water-based experience, including transport, accommodation, reservations, catering, performers, guiding, local food, retail, maintenance, security, digital marketing and training.
“The project must not become an island in the visitor economy. It must pull other businesses into the economy.”
However, Sotyu stressed that the project should proceed only once key conditions have been addressed.
These include regulatory certainty, safety compliance, market demand, viable infrastructure, sound governance, appropriate financing and the capacity to operate sustainably.
“The business case before the Summit itself recognises that these matters must be resolved before major procurement proceeds.”
She added: “We must build projects that can survive long after the launch photographs have been taken.”
Ownership built into development
Sotyu also linked destination development to transformation, arguing that participation should be built into tourism projects from the outset rather than added after investment decisions have been made.
She raised questions around who participates in ownership, who receives procurement opportunities, who has access to training and management, and which businesses enter the supply chain.
The speech specifically highlighted women, young people and community enterprises, with proposed summit legacy initiatives focused on youth skills, work experience, enterprise development, market access and pathways towards ownership.
“We must connect skills to work, skills to enterprise and skills to markets.”
Sotyu proposed a pipeline from learning to skills, employment, enterprise, leadership and ownership.
She said this should be the objective of meaningful transformation in the tourism economy.
Infrastructure needs economic activity
The Department has previously supported maintenance and enhancement work at Gariep as part of work on provincial state-owned tourism assets.
But Sotyu said maintaining infrastructure was only one part of destination development.
“Infrastructure only becomes economically meaningful when people use it, businesses operate around it, experiences are created from it, and visitors spend money because of it.”
She said the next step was to move “from infrastructure to experience, from experience to enterprise, and from enterprise to sustainable local economic activity”.
That requires coordination between government, industry, communities and investors, with water-based tourism cutting across tourism development, water management, transport, safety, environmental management, municipal infrastructure, land-use planning, enterprise support, skills development, investment finance and destination marketing.
Summit success measured later
Sotyu said the success of the summit should not be measured by attendance or the number of presentations delivered, but by what happens after participants leave Gariep.
“We must be able to ask what moved from concept to implementation, which investment barriers were resolved, and which projects became more investable.”
The Department also wants to assess whether local enterprises enter the tourism value chain, young people gain skills and meaningful work opportunities, and more local attractions and experiences become bookable and market-ready.
Longer visitor stays, increased earnings for local tourism businesses and partnerships that continue beyond the summit would provide further measures of whether the platform has translated tourism potential into economic impact.
Beyond major destinations
Sotyu used Tourism Month to broaden the case for inland tourism, saying tourism opportunities exist beyond the country's established destinations.
She encouraged South Africans to explore destinations between major tourism centres, stay another night, try another experience and spend locally.
“Every additional experience creates another opportunity somewhere in the tourism value chain.”
She said Gariep provided an opportunity to demonstrate what destination development could look like when place, people, product, investment and partnership are connected.
The intended outcome, she said, was not another event at Gariep Dam but a stronger visitor economy around the destination.
