Cape Town tourism gets a taste of climate change water crisis

And now the message to the international tourism market is that Cape Town has become the global benchmark for water sustainability.

When Cape Town revealed it was fast hurtling towards the moment it would become the first city on earth to run out of water earlier this year, it caught the world’s attention. Wrote the BBC

Initial predictions said the taps in this South African city of four million people should have run dry by April.

But despite the odds appearing stacked against it, the dams never fell to 13.5% – the level needed to reach "Day Zero", which has now been pushed back to next year at the earliest.

The rains have finally arrived, and Cape Town appears to have pulled itself back from the brink – for now.

So, what lessons have been learned? Icebergs could be the answer

At times like this, it is probably always worth thinking outside the box.

But when Nick Sloane – a South African salvage captain known for righting the Costa Concordia – announced he could solve the issue by dragging a 100 million tonne iceberg north from the Antarctic, more than a few eyebrows were raised.

But, Capt Sloane assured the BBC’s Newsday programme, it is completely possible.

"At any one time there are thousands of icebergs which have broken off drifting around the Southern Ocean," he said.

"Most of the icebergs are pushed south by the Agulhas current. We going to try and guide the iceberg into a different current: the Benguela current."

The current, he explained, is cold so the iceberg would be preserved – and crucially would be taken some 1,200 nautical miles north to near Cape Town, where it should – in theory – come to a halt on the sea bed.

But why go to all this effort? Well, one of these icebergs would provide enough water for a third of Cape Town’s residents for an entire year.

Cape Town’s deputy mayor Ian Neilson still needs to be convinced though – especially because moving icebergs thousands of miles is not without risk, and definitely not cheap.

"The questions are: ‘What is the price, how long is it going to take?’" he told the BBC. "So a really strong case would need to be made."

And anyway, the city already has its own plans in place to supplement its dams.

"Certainly, we are driving projects around ground water, water reuse and desalination, and until we see something better that’s what we will do," he explained. Which seems to suggest that another idea, mooted more than a decade ago, to drive water 2,500 miles from the Congo River to Cape Town is probably not going to happen.

Which is good, because that water is also being eyed up as a possible solution to Africa’s vanishing lake.

The crisis really caught the world’s attention after it was announced citizens would only be allowed to live on 50 litres of water a day.

But Capetonians quickly adapted. Ninety-second showers, unflushed loos and dirty cars are matters of pride in Cape Town homes, while some restaurants have completely shut off their bathroom taps, forcing customers to opt for hand sanitizer instead, and many public swimming pools are empty.

And it has worked. "We have got our overall consumption down by 50%," said Mr Neilson. "It could not have been achieved by just a small number of people. Very clearly, there has been a change in people’s approach to water."

Of course, there are places still boasting perfectly manicured, green lawns. But generally these all come with a sign on the wall declaring – somewhat defensively – "borehole water", meaning they are not using the mains supply.

Borehole digging, in turn, has become a new source of income for Cape Town’s entrepreneurs, with adverts offering the service on lampposts across the city.

And if you still suspect your neighbour of not doing their part, there is a handy interactive map which shows exactly how much each street is using.

… the poorest residents already do

When Day Zero was first announced, there was a bit of finger-pointing towards the city’s informal settlements, where it was claimed by some that taps ran almost non-stop.

Quite simply, Mr Neilson said, this was not true. According to South Africa’s News24, even before the drought, homes in Cape Town’s informal settlements used just 40 litres per day.

"Informal settlements use less than 4% of the water. That’s not the place where the problem is," Mr Neilson said. "The big usage was what takes place behind big walls."

It may not be a good idea to tell tourists

Day Zero may have been enough to frighten Capetonians into action, but it had an unfortunate side effect: it also scared the tourists.

Cape Town and the wider Western Cape welcome more than 1.6m international visitors a year – not to mention the 2.1m South Africans who holiday in the region.

At the height of the crisis, an informal survey by Wesgro among 18 hotels in Cape Town reflects the impact the water challenge in the city already has on the hospitality sector.

Wesgro is the official tourism, trade and investment promotion agency for Cape Town and the Western Cape and the results of the survey were mentioned during a presentation at an event the agency hosted recently.

The hotels surveyed indicated that they did between 10% and 15% worse in terms of bookings in January and February compared to the same period last year. These hotels also indicated that the situation for the upcoming period from April to September looks worse with bookings down a lot.

What is even more concerning to Wesgro is that the survey indicated that hotel reservation books for 2019 are basically "empty" so far compared to 2017. Wesgro regards this as one of the unintended consequences of the water crisis on hotel bookings for 2019 due to the uncertainty in the international tourism market about the issue.

There have also been questions from overseas tour operators about issues like the listeriosis outbreak and land reform and its (potential) impact on tourists who might decide to visit the country. It also seems a lot of potential international visitors to the Cape are now worried that they will take water from the locals and, therefore, consider not coming.

The message Wesgro is sending out, however, is about the resilience of the city and its residents in the face of the water challenge. There could even be an option for tourists to offset their water footprint during their visit to the city by making a donation to a relevant NGO.

Wesgro’s message to the international tourism market is that Cape Town has now become the global benchmark for water sustainability.

Wesgro CEO Tim Harris said Cape Town and the Western Cape must be marketed as a drought resistant destination. He emphasised the importance of preserving the R40bn tourism economy of the province.

He wants to see tourism being an important part of what he called the "Ramaphoria" process, leading the way in the economy, not only of the Western Cape, but of SA.

Western Cape Minister of Economic Opportunities Alan Winde said at the event that the possibility of Day Zero due to Cape Town’s water crisis has hurt the province financially and from a tourism point of view.

It also hit the province from an investment point of view, from a tourism forward bookings point of view and has caused local businesses to re-evaluate further investments.

"We had to tell the world that Day Zero means we still need your business. We had to say that the responsible thing to do is come to visit the Cape as it does not help us to take away any of our existing economy," said Winde.

"We will have to see how much rain we get and how much we could use per person afterwards. The drought will end and we will have massive opportunities again."

As for concerns about tourism safety raised during question time at the event, Winde said partnerships are being built, for instance regarding safety on Table Mountain trails, and ATM fraud targeting tourists in the CBD has also been reduced.

After all, following the last big drought it took a decade for water consumption to reach its previous levels, Mr Neilson said.

And what’s more, saving water has now become a badge of honour for the city’s residents.

Valere Tjolle

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