CAPE Town could soon develop a safety plan for township tours in the city. This follows robberies in Langa last week, where 47 foreign tourists, including Dutch, German and British visitors were robbed in separate township tours. As a result of the hits, Thompsons Africa has cancelled all its night time township tourism tours in Cape Town and will be reviewing such tours on a weekly basis. Cape Town is inviting all township tour operators, Cape Town Routes Unlimited and other township hospitality stakeholders on December 8 to discuss the plan. The city will put forward a proposal to township tour operators that they establish fixed routes from which they will not deviate so that the Metro Police will be able to patrol those routes during the high season. Dumisani Ximbi, Cape Town safety and security committee member, says tourism should not focus only on the so-called mainstream tourist destinations in the city and exclude disadvantaged areas. “We believe that the interests of our city’s international reputation as a tourist destination, and in the interests of the township tour operators and hospitality industry, that we reach an agreement on an exact set of township tour routes that can be policed properly,’ says Ximbi. A source from Langa police station said there is an increased police presence in the township and that the situation has “normalised”. The source said it was unlikely that tourists or visitors were being targeted and that it was more likely that in these cases, the tourists were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Natalia Thomson and Jeanette Briedenhann (nataliat@nowmedia.co.za)
