Alec Hogg: The Rational Perspective

Hello.  I’m Alec Hogg.  Here’s the Rational Perspective. 

Well, if you’ve been following this past week, you’d know I’ve been in Cape Town and I’ve been thinking a lot about tourism.  Remember, it’s one of the nine key areas, which was mentioned in Jacob Zuma’s State of the Nation Address last month. 

I worry, though, that it will ever take off – certainly, in the way that Zuma and his ANC party want it to.  Their tendency is to command and control, manage and direct and the private sector doesn’t really work like that. 

We got a very good indication of this in Cape Town in this past week and particularly last night.  I went along last night for what was called a mass moonlight ride.  Okay, so you had to hire a bicycle and join thousands of others at 21:15, so your whole day was changed to include this. 

It was a perfect example of how the City of Cape Town has gotten it right by understanding that you enable (not control).  What the city did, apart from making sure that the streets are safe, (which goes without saying) is that they helped by having some of the traffic officers block off roads, which the cyclists could go through. 

Consequently, you could ride down Main Road, Sea Point, up Bree Street, and down Long Street – an experience not often available.  Of course, the Cape Town weather also played ball. 

The main thing about all of this is that Cape Town really has ideas and it has an understanding of enabling, too.  That’s why tourism is so strong here.

Johannesburg on the other hand, has the Gautrain.  It’s the commercial centre and it has the money but it isn’t yet getting to the point that public/private partnerships really work through that big word – partnerships. 

Get that right and watch tourism boom. 

This is Alec Hogg with the Rational Perspective.