Ubuntu: Co-operation Zulu style

According to Evelyn Mahlaba, Global Manager Trade Relations for South African Tourism (pictured below), South Africa’s greatest tourism asset is its people.

“The only way to you experience the welcome, is to be here” she said at Indaba, South Africa’s largest tourism trade show held in Durban last month.

While South Africa’s natural resources are well documented, photographed and admired, the true essence of this beautiful nation is found on the faces of its proud residents.

Lions, giraffes, leopards, elephants and monkeys all play their role in the booming tourism market, but they don’t speak, they don’t smile and they don’t extend a warm hand of welcome (well, maybe the monkeys will extend a hand but it’s usually to nick your food.)

High in the Valley of a Thousand Hills, overlooking Durban, the Zulu welcome is as warm as the sun that Durban constantly basks in.

In the shops of Durban, in the hotel lobbies and on the streets, the welcome is omnipresent. And genuine.

It seems that in South Africa, everyone is in the tourism industry. To quote, Lebo Malepa, founder of the now booming backpackers accommodation in Soweto, “Tourism is everyone’s business.” Judging from the size of the trade show and the amount of operators and accommodation options on offer, it’s obvious that tourism touches every corner of society.

The cabbies consider themselves part of the tourist industry and the street sellers with their beaded wares and wooden artefacts play a role in the tourist industry as well. And it’s not just that they rely on the tourist dollar for a living, they make a genuine contribution to the colour and vibrancy of the country.

The Zulu word “Ubuntu” means “I am, because we are” and it’s the spirit of co-operation that permeates through the city of Durban and spreads over the breadth of the country.

It’s also a spirit that is demonstrated in the broader tourism industry of Southern Africa.

While the majority of exhibitors at Indaba represent product from South Africa, the neighbouring countries of Zambia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and other developing tourist hotspots in the region are all represented and vie for the attention of wholesalers. 

With hundreds of exhibitors at Indaba and nearly 4,000 visitors walking the floor in buying mode, warm welcomes are followed by hot negotiations, which paradoxically, is a very cool way to do business.

A report by Kevin Moloney