Guilty of navel-gazing

Instead of attacking the the Courier for publishing the article bemoaning the decline in tourism in the North Coast, Mr Hlongwane, the executive director of KwaDukuza municipality should be praising it and asking the Courier to be part of his efforts to grow tourism (Tourism needs public-private partnership, Courier June 27).
For him to quote government agencies in Tourism KwaZulu-Natal and SA Tourism is real navel gazing. Those institutions do not run a single tourism establishment in the North Coast. Neither do they provide current information about the state of tourism. They wait either for Stats SA surveys or their own commissioned surveys which, by the time they are released, the businesses in tourism which are experiencing the declining tourism numbers could have closed down!
We could ask a lot of questions on the KwaDukuza’s tardiness in supporting tourism, including asking what has taken them so long in facilitating the formation of the Community Tourism Association. However, what is most important is that Mr Hlongwane needs to start listening to the business community, instead of telling the community to listen to him! He should stop beating his own, out-of-tune drum.
In addition, the three spheres of government, the province, Ilembe district and KwaDukuza need to communicate properly unified tourism strategy with the local tourism community so that there is no finger pointing.
MGCULISI QWABE
Ballito