Tourism stakeholders along the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Battlefields route have raised renewed concerns about the condition of key access roads and the broader decline in regional infrastructure, warning that the area’s recovery post-COVID remains fragile.
According to Simon Blackburn, owner of Three Tree Hill Lodge, roads leading to and within the Battlefields area are in poor condition. “There are potholes in various states of repair or disrepair on the R74, between Winterton and Bergville, which are quite bad with frequent accidents and damaged tyres and rims, and the R616,” he said. “Several meetings with the head of the local road department over the past two years have yielded no results.”
Although Three Tree Hill Lodge has good access via a newly upgraded road near the N3, Blackburn said poor road conditions on day-trip routes still affect self-drive travel. “We advise self-drives to proceed with caution.”
A broader issue
Blackburn noted a wider decline in the province’s international tourism share, attributing it to fewer flights into King Shaka International Airport and high airfares as well as broader perceptions of safety.
Tour operators and agents are shifting focus away from KZN towards destinations such as Cape Town, Kruger, Botswana and Victoria Falls, he added.
As an intervention, he called for the establishment of a public-private partnership (PPP) to coordinate tourism recovery, “We need a well-funded PPP like Wesgro for KZN with an industry-experienced dynamic CEO. Without this, we will remain a disjointed industry with huge potential but constricted by our lack of unity, direction and goal-driven coordination.”
Douglas Rattray, MD of Fugitives’ Drift Lodge, echoed concerns about the impact of poor road infrastructure. “KZN is suffering in the tourism space and the road network is one of the primary concerns,” he said.
While bookings at his lodge remain relatively steady, he acknowledged growing cancellations from coach tours and noted that guests increasingly opt for air transfers or helicopter charters, which are not viable for the broader market.
Rattray said international guests are not deterred by safety concerns alone but by the condition of the roads. “Their overriding concern is the difficulty in transport. Whatever safety concerns they have are predicated on the condition of the roads.”
He stressed the need for infrastructure investment as a public good, “Far too many South Africans lose their lives and livelihoods to badly maintained roads. It becomes a self-fulfilling cycle of decline and hardship.”
“We fall into the trap of complaining about the roads from the tourism perspective but, far more importantly, it should be looked at from the resident’s perspective. It is the jewel in the crown of South Africa with the four B’s: the Berg, the Battlefields, the bush and the beaches. We have it all,” said Rattray.
