South Africa bets on its pristine night skies to propel world-first Astro tourism strategy – Dr Shamilla Chettiar
Half of the world's population cannot enjoy the night sky due to light pollution. Fortunately, South Africa has a significant geographic advantage, allowing us to experience our stunning night skies. The country aims to leverage this with its substantial investment in the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), a multi-billion-dollar initiative to construct the world's largest telescope. In an interview with Biznews, Shamilla Chettiar, the Deputy Director-General of the South African Department of Tourism, said that R352 million will be allocated to the project in the Northern Cape to stimulate economic growth and combat unemployment. Dr. Chettiar said that Sutherland, home to the largest optical telescope in the Southern Hemisphere, has seen a surge in tourism, generating R50 million annually for the region. A Science Exploratorium will be established in Carnarvon, where the SKA is located, and the astro-tourism strategy will include the indigenous storytelling traditions of the San people.
Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.
Support South Africa's bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.
If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here.
Watch here
Listen here
Edited Transcript of the interview
Linda van Tilburg (00:01.228)
South Africa is looking to capitalise on one of its underutilised tourist attractions, its unpolluted night skies. A new Astro tourism strategy has been presented to Parliament, aiming to integrate astronomical research facilities, dedicated dark-sky tourism zones and indigenous celestial storytelling into the national tourism landscape. Joining us in the studio to discuss this is Shamilla Chettiar, the Deputy Director General of the South African Department of Tourism.
Shamilla Chettiar (00:40.194)
Thank you very much and thank you for that fabulous introduction. know, we like to say in South Africa, we have extraordinary tourism offerings, but we also have extraordinary science. So South African science tells the story of Earth and life. We can claim Africa as the continent that humanity emerged from, human beings emerged from.
We are through Astro tourism, off course, now exploring astronomy and its links with tourism. What is very extraordinary is because we have so much development across the world. Fifty percent of the world's population is unable to see the night sky.
So, 50 percent of the world is unable to actually see the stars and in South Africa, it is not a small advantage. It's a massive geographic advantage to be able to see the extraordinary night skies.
You were saying a little bit earlier, you visited the Karoo, and visitors who were not South African when they looked up were completely astounded by the number of stars that you can see, and it is exactly that. You can look up in South Africa, in parts of our country, and see the entire Milky Way. It is an extraordinary experience. I think that what we've also discovered is that post-COVID, many, travellers are looking for spaces that they can be in wide open spaces. They're looking for natural environments and South Africa through its work actually allows us to explore those wide-open spaces and to be able to use the night skies.
The night skies are also free, which is an extraordinary advantage. They also are most spectacular, as it turns out, in rural areas, in areas where there is not very much of a massive built environment. What is marvellous for us is that we are now able to take people away from urban areas. They can visit urban areas, and they must also explore down the road.
Sutherland is our case study for the benefit of the dark sky. Sutherland basically has the single largest optical telescope in the southern hemisphere that was set up in 1976. But since 1976, there's been gradual development of tourism facilities. There are now 44 different accommodation type facilities and offerings in Sutherland. Last year alone, Sutherland saw 25,000 visitors which is a very large number.
What our research tells us is that if people are visiting a place like Sutherland and certainly a place like Carnarvon, they will stay over. So. if you look at a simple calculation of a visitor spending R2000 for accommodation, eating out, taking a little visit to the observatory and doing some stargazing that is around R50 million that was brought into Sutherland last year. It's not a small contribution that tourists can make. We often say, we want you to leave your footprints, and not much else and that is exactly what Astro tourism allows us to do.
Linda van Tilburg (04:37.546)
That sounds all incredibly exciting and some of the private tourism facilities have really explored this already. So, what else is needed in terms of financial and infrastructure to support this development of dark sky tourism in South Africa?
Dr Shamilla Chettiar (04:57.334)
So, essentially what we have is already a very massive investment in terms of the science of astronomy. We have at the SKA, of course, over the next few years, we are looking at a $2billion dollar investment in the infrastructure of astronomy and we as tourism department are then capitalising on that amazing work that our scientists are doing in collaboration with scientists across the world.
The strategy itself identifies 46 public and private partnerships projects. Not all of these have been funded. So, the total budget estimate needed to fund all 46 is just over R350 million. We already have funding of R150 million, so roughly 40 % of that total budget. We have already seen R75 million which is, I would say, a public private sector investment in the digital dome at the University of Witwatersrand. So, it's a very spectacular facility that's just been upgraded.
We are also going to be building a Science Exploratorium in Carnarvon, which is where the square kilometre array is actually located, and announcements related to that development will be made later in the year because we do anticipate that we'll break ground in that development. We're also then investing in the development of people. We've started work by training astro guides in the Northern Cape.
What is South Africa also has amazing a star lor, which comes from indigenous storytelling. The San people have navigated the continent for centuries using the night sky and so we are incorporating the indigenous storytelling into the work that we are doing and through that building new enterprises around the tourist guiding but also creating new products in the area.
So those are what we have as our big projects that we're looking forward to in the next two years and working together with our astronomy and tourism stakeholders across the country. We are also developing not just in the Northern Cape because the strategy is a national strategy, but we are actually working across the country to look at how we offer this.
Our national parks, for example, lend themselves perfectly to stargazing as an added opportunity and our rural communities also lend themselves to creating enterprises that offer this and bring it on stream. South Africa by the way is the only country that we know and the first that has a national Astro tourism strategy.
There are many countries in the world where astronomy is important and where they have actual offerings that are tourism and astronomy, but South Africa is the only country that has formalised that and we're really proud both of our scientists but also of our tourism offering.
Linda van Tilburg (08:28.456)
So, you mentioned that the budget's around R300 million and you've got R140 million now. Where is the rest of the money going to come from?
Dr Shamilla Chettiar (08:37.432)
So, we have the projects that are listed in our strategy and the strategy is a public document so anyone can have a look at it. We have a number of proposals. We're working with different parties and what we have created is an Astro Tourism Governance Board which is comprised of stakeholders from both astronomy and tourism.
This team is basically the team that is now going to assist with lobbying for both public and private sector funding to make the remaining projects that aren't funded a reality. But I think that almost 40 % of that budget, which is R150 million, is not a small or insignificant contribution to start off with. Our strategy is a 10-year strategy. So, in that 10-year period, we feel confident that working with various stakeholders, that we will be able to make the rest of the projects a reality.
Linda van Tilburg (09:34.875)
Tell us a little bit more about that indigenous part of the story. You talked a little bit about the San people and how would that be expanded?
Shamilla Chettiar (09:45.368)
So, we already, and if there are visitors, I would encourage them, we always encourage visitors to come to South Africa and leave your money behind. We have already started some of that interpretation. Visitors who have ever wandered up to the Kgalagadi National Park, there is a beautiful interpretation centre that tells in the San's words, the story of how they navigate the night skies.
In addition to that, what we have invested in is a marketplace where you can engage with the crafters and our astro guides. Some of them are located in that part of the world and they can offer you the visitor experience. There is also a very beautiful centre that has just been completed at the South African Astronomy Observatory in Cape Town.
So, for those visitors who are in Cape Town, this is a really beautiful centre that again has woven in the indigenous narratives into the story line. You can also purchase at that particular centre written texts, beautiful books, beautifully illustrated of indigenous storytelling.
So, we are working very closely in the Northern Cape, because this is where many of the San people are located and working very closely with those communities, I think, to allow their stories to unfold. And the very nice thing about tourism is that we are not precious about narratives. We believe that different stories can coexist. So, the very serious scientific story of astronomy can very easily coexist with the San narratives.
If you are up in the Northern Cape and that part of the world, there are also amazing storytelling evenings around a fire with local communities who then will actually show you the night sky, but through different eyes. So that's how we're weaving that work into what we are doing in the tourism space.
Linda van Tilburg (12:05.169)
So, what are you hoping this would contribute to the economy and to job creation?
Shamilla Chettiar (12:12.31)
I think that we are using Sutherland as an example. We haven't completed a complete economic impact. But as I was saying, in Sutherland, we now know that there is a very significant contribution to job creation and those 25,000 visitors that go there do contribute significantly, as I was indicating, to the economy.
So, this is what we are hoping will be the same impetus that will be created in the Carnarvon area. We have other examples, not from astronomy, but certainly from palaeontology.
in Gauteng, the cradle of humankind, which is a World Heritage Site located just outside of Johannesburg we know that when it started there were around 69 tourism facilities that were in the area. Government invested in the Maropeng Interpretation Centre and in infrastructure like the roads and signage and cycle lanes. Now that there are over 400 different tourism offerings in that area.
Government contribution is really to invest in the strategic economic infrastructure and then allow the private sector to grow incrementally as those visitors increase to the site. So, we do have very good success stories, just not the direct economic impact for Carnarvon and Astro tourism yet, but we will have those figures as we are working through this.
Linda van Tilburg (13:53.094)
light pollution is a problem for stargazers and some of them are also complaining about Elon Musk's satellites affecting that. How will you address this issue to ensure South Africa's unpolluted night skies are not polluted?
Dr Shamilla Chettiar (14:11.542)
We already have legislation that has been passed related to dark skies, particularly around the SKA. We are also working with the Dark Skies Initiative to look at the type of lighting, for example, that we put into that area. Lighting is actually not a problem at all. It is just the type of lighting and the way in which that lighting is focused.
So downward lighting rather than lighting that goes up into the sky. We think that there are very easy ways to manage that. We're working with the Dark Skies Initiative to actually then work together with local communities and residents, particularly of that area, to make sure that any initiatives that we have actually then do meet the kind of lighting requirements and retain the specific ambience of that area.
So, there's legislation, but there's also the softer skills of working with people to get them to understand the benefits of the Dark Skies Initiative.
Linda van Tilburg (15:18.401)
There's an emotional aspect to it as well. I'm not sure how you feel when you arrive, but I find that looking up at the sky is incredibly soothing.
Dr Shamilla Chettiar (15:27.946)
It is extraordinary calming. So, we are also really lucky to have on our team somebody called Dr. Letitia Jacobs, whose PhD is in Astro tourism and Letitia often tells the story of how she became interested in the night skies. She would pretty much lie on the grass and look up at the skies and wonder about what was out there.
I think that that's her story, but it is a story that any one of us can connect with. I think that we have all done that at some point in our life, from when we were little children, just looked up and wondered what was out there, and tried to figure out what those glittering stars were. I think you are quite right.
It is something that connects with you at a very visceral level and anyone who has been out to Sutherland or to Carnarvon and just has that experience of just looking up at the extraordinary Milky Way will understand that connection. i think that we're also pretty excited because aligned with that is all of the very exciting scientific findings that are coming out of the data from the SKA.
and from SALT, the large telescope that's based at Sutherland and when you speak to astronomers, they are equally enthralling. What's really nice is that you have that opportunity at Sutherland to engage then with astronomers and we're hoping that once our visitor centre is up and running in Carnarvon, that there is a similar opportunity for visitors to engage with real scientists.
Linda van Tilburg (17:20.695)
Anything else you'd like to add?
Dr Shamilla Chettiar (17:22.892)
I think the only thing I'd like to add is that through the work that we're doing on tourism, we're also hoping to inspire the next generation of scientists because I think that curiosity is peaked by seeing and doing things that you haven't necessarily done before. And I think that if you're a visitor, your curiosity is peaked about things you might not necessarily have been interested in.
All I can say is that we look forward to welcoming South Africans as well as visitors from across the globe to experience our extraordinary Astro tourism offering.
Read also: