Cape Town - With tourism comes responsibility, and on Sunday a host of different organisations gathered atop Cape Town’s most famous landmark to look back on the first year of the city’s Responsible Tourism Pilot Project.
An initiative of Responsible Tourism Cape Town, which has under its umbrella the city, Cape Town Tourism, the Federated Hospitality Association of Southern Africa (Cape Region), the SA Tourism Services Association and the SA Association for the Conference Industry, it was begun in 2009 when the bodies made a formal commitment to create a sustainable tourism industry.
On Sunday, on top of Table Mountain, they gathered to reflect on the first year of practising responsible stewardship over the city’s growing – and very lucrative – tourism trade. It was the day after World Tourism Day, which was marked on Thursday.
A total of 21 companies enrolled in the pilot project, signing a charter committing themselves to use environmentally and socially responsible business practices.
Five organisations that led the pack in adopting good practices presented their techniques for protecting the environment and improving their communities.
One, the Backpack Hostel, supports the Greater Commission United football club, which partners with Woodlands Primary School in Heideveld to take coaching, mentoring and tutoring to the pupils.
The hostel helped resurrect the school’s library and brought in volunteers to coach and tutor, with the help of donations from hostel guests. The staff even convinced German landscape architects staying at the hostel to help revive the school’s dying garden. Profits from the gardens produce bring in money for the school.
The Table Mountain Aerial Cableway Company also got in on the act, by reducing its environmental impact. In the past year alone, the company reduced its waste to landfill from 203 tons to 77 tons. Its dining rooms now use compostable dinnerware, which disintegrates if it accidentally blows off the mountain. Recycled cardboard is given to local craftspeople, who turn it into jewellery and handicrafts that support impoverished families.
Presenters emphasised the importance of environmental sustainability to the sustainability of the tourism industry. The coastline is one of the city’s biggest assets, and rising sea levels and soil erosion from global warming threaten everything from hotels and tour operators to restaurateurs who rely on the coastline’s beauty to entice travellers.
The presentations and lively discussions of what is left to be done inspired councillor Achmat Williams to stand up and pledge R500 to the project. He promised to ask all 211 councillors to do the same.
“We can see what these people have done so far, but they need money,” he said. “When I saw this I felt it was a golden opportunity to help.” - Weekend Argus