Daily Insider: With a bit of focus South Africans could be world champions of tourism
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Have belatedly discovered the business historian Richard S Tedlow, a long-time Harvard Business School professor (for 43 years) and author of some truly magnificent books. In the one I'm getting into right now, Giants of Enterprise, Tedlow tells the stories of seven countrymen – Carnegie, Watson, Eastman, Revson, Noyce, Walton and Ford. It's like having seven great biographies in one volume.
Tedlow introduces us to the book by suggesting that had these seven exceptional beings been born Italian, they would perhaps have become composers. Were their parents Russian, he continues, then the fellows might have ended up as novelists. Portuguese, they'd have been navigators; German soldiers; Romanian gymnasts, and so on.
The author describes the book as being about "what Americans do best – founding and building businesses." Which raised two points for me. First, why are Americans the world's undisputed entrepreneurial champions? And second, if we asked the rest of humanity, what might they suggest South Africans are the best in the world at?
The first was easy. The US economy is the world's most efficient in the delivery of goods and services – a huge support for entrepreneurship. South Africa? We're surely the world's best miners (and rugby players). But a less obvious super-power is our combination of natural beauty and smiles? Ideal attributes for a nation striving to become the world's foremost tourist destination. Perfect motivation for an all-out assault on crime. Roll on 2024.
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