Chapter 4 Supply Analysis | District

Insert MERO table here.

Introduction

Known for its wide-open spaces, the Karoo is where you want to go when the pace of city life is something you want to escape. The Karoo is where you go to get off the grid.

A place of incredible beauty, wild game, clear skies and magical sunsets, the

Karoo has several Nature Reserves and game farms, boasting an abundance of wildlife. The Karoo National Park, for example, is home to black rhino, lions, and other wild game.

Another animal in abundance in the Karoo is sheep, who roam ‘freely’ around the area on large plots of land, sampling a wide range of indigenous, aromatic plants. As a result, the Karoo has become famous for its delicious and tasty lamb dishes.

The N1 highway is a significant point of access for the district but it is also an invitation to speed through the region. The region's tourism bureaus currently lack the coordination and resource to market the CKD brand, it’s routes and attractions, which is a significant drawback for tourism development. (CKDM

Tourism development and masterplan, June 2019)

But the truth is the Karoo is bigger than this. The Karoo region spans across 101 towns and four provinces of , the Northern Cape, Eastern Cape,

1 and Free State, and the visitor is not aware of the munipal boundaries.

Destination positioning

In the Karoo the horizon is so vast, you can see forever. Locals say you can see the rain hours before it arrives on your doorstep. It's this vastness and openness that defines the beauty of the place. Products, experiences and tourism bureaus use the legendary beauty of the Karoo when positioning the area, along with its offering of wildlife experiences and natural wonders.

The #karoo boasts over 149 000 posts on Instagram (November 2019) and a review of these posts all align with how the region positions itself from a tourism perspective. One dominated by imagery of wildlife, scenic landscape photography and road trips.

2 The Karoo (which is Khoisan for “dry, hard, thirst land) is a unique arid zone and considered a wonder of the scientific world. It boasts the richest diversity of succulents (over 9,000 species) and the greatest variety of land tortoises on the planet, as well as the Western Cape’s largest collection of San (Bushman) rock art and the country’s first Braille fossil trail which boasts a record number of mammal-like reptiles dating as far back as 25 million years. The Karoo is a place of the purest night skies, the most spectacular dawn breaks and breath-taking sunsets (www.southafrica.com)

Tourism Attraction Audit

To get a better understanding of the current product offering in the district and identify possible opportunities to stimulate demand, an audit of six attractions took place.

3

Adult Child Dwell Type of Annual Admission Admission % % % % Opening Closed time Full Part Clean Attraction Visitors Fee Fee Adult Child domestic international times days (hrs) time time

05:00 - Karoo National Park Nature 33 572 n/a n/a 90% 10% 10:00 0 n/a n/a 7:30 - 2 Anysberg Nature Reserve Nature 1 668 R50,00 R30,00 94% 6% 99% 1% 5:00 0 nights n/a n/a

07:45- 40 Beaufort West Museum Cultural/Heritage 1 200 R25,00 R15,00 80% 20% 50% 50% 4:30 1 min 24 8 Aquila Game Reserve Animal based 60 000 R1 800,00 R900,00 90% 10% 30% 70% hours 0 hours 600 0

Matjiesfontein Day Visits Cultural/Heritage n/a

Swartberg Circle Route Cultural/Heritage n/a

* = day visitor numbers only

4 Audit outcome

· The lack of formal visitor attractions in the region was highly noticeable

· Many of the popular attractions (e.g. Matjiesfontein, Circle Route) did not have enough data on

hand to assist in making strategic business decisions

· In the MERO 2019 report it stated that the top activity undertaken in the district by tourists was to experience

culture and heritage, it is notable that there are no culture and heritage attractions as significant drawcards.

· Aquila Private Game Reserve situated two hours outside Cape Town had twice as many admissions as the

Karoo National Park. While this is a functionality of proximity, it also indicates the value that international visitors

place on seeing the Big 5 game.

· The Beaufort West Museum, although only attracting a handful of visitors, attracted an equal proportion of

foreign and domestic visitors. These numbers are an indication of the interest in the heritage experience.

Audit segmentation

5 Hi quality experience Is experience really hi Sweet-spot? quality? Capacity Mgt Marketing Expectation Mgt Research

Lo visitor Hi visitor numbers numbers

Why are we here? Invest in ? experience

Lo quality experience

Definition of quadrants

• High quality/low visitor numbers: Attractions in this quadrant need to explore why their visitor numbers are small.

Investment in marketing and awareness of the attraction is required.

• High-quality experience/high visitor numbers: Attractions in this quadrant need to ensure they manage capacity

issues. Poor capacity management will adversely affect the visitor experience and over time, result in visitor

6 expectations not being met. Attractions in this quadrant are a flagship or iconic attractions and can act as

drawcards for the region.

• Low-quality experience/high visitor numbers: Attractions in this quadrant need to invest in the visitor experience.

The relatively high visitor numbers despite poor experience often mask the real demand for the experience.

Investment into the experience results in increased visitor numbers thus contributing to the bottom line.

• Low-quality experience/low visitor numbers: Attractions in this quadrant need to ask themselves whether they

wish to be in the attractions industry or remain a hyper-niche experience. If the former, they need to invest in the

experience in a scientific way. If the latter, they need to ensure their experience remains a good quality niche

product.

7

Source: DEDAT, 2019

8 High Quality Low Visitor Numbers

The historic and magnificently preserved heritage village of Matjiesfontein provides an authentic immersive experience that can be engaged with for a short road break or longer afternoon and stayover. Unfortunately no data is available as to the number of day visitors that pass through but this village should be an iconic stop for all tourists on the N1.

The Swartberg Circle Route is a spectacular scenic drive with multiple access points which can rival any scenic drive in the country. Unfortunately there is no data as to the number of tourists accessing this route.

Karoo National Park is a high quality nature experience including the world’s first fossil braille trail, but visitor numbers are relatively low.

Anysberg Nature Reserve offers a good nature experience, low visitor numbers are as a consequence of accommodation constraints.

High Quality Experience High Visitor Numbers

Aquila Private Nature Reserve provides high quality day and overnight trips

Low Visitor Numbers and Low Quality of Experience

9 The museum experiences in the region such as the Beaufort West Museum and the Laingsburg Flood Museum draw small visitor numbers due to the dated subject matter and poor museum presentation.

Opportunities and Gaps | Finding the sweet spot

Source: DEDAT, 2019

10 Sweet spot 1: The N1 highway

The Gap

“Drive-thru”. Holiday makers race through the Karoo enroute to their destination.

The Opportunity

Owning Slow Travel.

The Central Karoo District is home to some of the most scenic and dramatic landscapes in South Africa. This imagery echoes in the image's visitors use across their social media posts, artists use in their paintings and travel magazines laud in their articles. The new world language is visual, and people are celebrating the Joy Of Missing Out (JOMO), seeking ways to destress, detox and re-connect. The Central Karoo District can deliver against all these traveler needs.

The N1 highway is a significant point of access for the district but is also an invitation to speed through the region.

11 To attract visitors all year round and the Central Karoo needs to move from a stop-over en route to a destination to becoming a pivotal part of the holiday. The Karoo will need to package the N1 itself, and its surrounding areas into a concept that is highly marketable and relevant to foreign and domestic travelers.

The opportunity lies in making the Central Karoo District the center of Slow Travel in South Africa.

Slow travel is a mindset rather than a mode of transport. Slow travel has been described as 'deep travel', 'immersive travel', 'mindful travel', 'sustainable tourism' or 'low impact travel' all of which is gaining momentum in a tourism world where some seek to actively avoid tourist sites. Slow travel means taking time out from our always-on world and releasing the need to squeeze in as many places to visit as possible.

With slow travel doing less is achieving more. The aim is to experience one place for longer, get to know the local culture, food and people. Slow travel advocates and encourages tourists to slow down and connect with themselves and the communities around them.

12 The Central Karoo can become the center of the slow travel movement in South Africa for both local and foreign visitors. Slow travel is less harmful on the planet and allows one to connect with a new way of doing things. The increased length of stay coupled with spend in the community provides for sustainable tourism impact in the surrounding community. Slow travel also speaks to the growing trend of focus on health and well-being.

Sweet Spot 2: Natural attractions

The Gap

The Central Karoo's biggest asset is its dark, expansive skies, but these are not being leveraged enough for tourism.

The opportunity

Astro tourism as a niche offering can be a vehicle for sustainable tourism development in the sparsely inhabited Central

Karoo.

13

Dark skies as a travel trend are emerging as visual access to clear skies become a rarity in our urbanized world. For 99% of people in Europe and the United States, artificial lighting is obscuring the night sky.

The clear open skies of the Central Karoo are ideal for star gazing and provides quicker access from Cape Town than

Sutherland in the Northern Cape, which is more than one hour’s drive from the Matjiesfontein N1 Turn off.

Astro tourism can be offered with a range of infrastructure, not all of which carries a hefty upfront investment, but does require a guide to the night skies that is not only knowledgeable but also able to provide an excellent experience through interpretation and storytelling. Infrastructure required can range from a good night sky guide with an astronomy grade laser pointer to a wide range of telescopes and astronomical binoculars. But the two most important requirements are: a dark sky and an engaging star-guide.

14 A range of tourism products can be developed to fit into this niche from astro-festivals and courses to short night sky lectures suitable for family experiences. Astro tourism does not have a high or low season but is an all-year-round activity.

Sweet Spot 2: Knowledge

The gap

There is no visitor or economic data for sites that are assumed to be significant attractions in the region.

The opportunity

Data-informed decisions to guide where and how to invest in tourism.

15 Notably, many attractions in the region were unwilling or unable to provide data. Data in terms of visitor numbers is key to making informed decisions for the area, and there needs to be a focus on finding cost-effective methods of gathering tourism data.

Initial data gathering should focus on significant attractions, such as:

• Matjiesfontein - there is no data available as to the number of visitors to the village, only overnight visitors.

• Scenic Routes: Swartberg pass, and the Swartberg Circle Route (see below).

• Prince Albert

• Klaarstroom

Sweet Spot 3: Scenic Routes

The gap

The unknown Swatberg Circle Route

16

Source: https://www.swartbergcircleroute.co.za

The opportunity

The Swartberg Circle Route takes you on a scenic and exciting drive offering a wide range of scenery, adventure and culinary delights. Travelers can go from or Calitzdorp to De Rust, Klaarstroom and Prince Albert, over

Swartberg Pass and through Meiringspoort. The trip may be started at any of the four towns and travelled in either a

17 clockwise or anti-clockwise direction. The picturesque back routes include Oudemuragie, Vergelegen, Lategansvlei,

Groenfontein, Kruisrivier and Langverwaght. (https://www.swartbergcircleroute.co.za)

The route can become known as one of the greatest scenic drives in the world.

Considering that tourists consistently site 'scenic drives' as one of their main activities, the Swartberg Circle Route can become a major drawcard for the area requiring no additional infrastructure, only investment in branding and marketing.

The route can be completed in a sedan vehicle and has good tourism infrastructure along the route in the form of accommodation (Oudtshoorn, de Rust, Klaarstrooom, Prince Albert), restaurants and cafes as well as agritourism sites such as Prince Albert Olives and Prince Albert Wine Route.

The Swartberg Circle Route can be done in a day or extended with overnight stops in several authentic, quaint villages along the way. With is range of dramatic scenery and historical, geological and heritage sites of interest, it can offer

18 travelers with a different experience to the R62 and Garden Route. The route can also be enjoyed via cycling

(mountain bike or e bike) and motorbike.

Sweet Spot: Iconic Visitor Attraction

The gap

There is no single iconic image of a Karoo attraction. The few small heritage attractions are poorly presented and provide dated subject matter, e.g. Beaufort West Museum/ Chris Barnard Museum, Laingsburg Flood Museum.

The opportunity

The open spaces of the Karoo provide an ideal backdrop for iconic site-specific land art. An arresting interactive land art installation could provide an iconic insta-grammable image of the Karoo, raising its profile and encouraging people to stop and interact with it. This attraction could be in the form of pop-up installation that changes or an iconic single arresting piece that becomes the icon of the Karoo.

19

Successful examples elsewhere:

Hand of the Desert by Mario Irarrazabal, a 11 meter desert mirage and 74km from the nearest town of Antofagasta. .

The sculpture was sponsored by the city of Antofagasta 25 years ago and has become a noted visual and cultural landmark for travellers on road trips through the Atacama Desert in Chile. https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/hand-of-the-desert-atacama-chile/index.html

Seven Magic Mountains (2016), a large scale desert artwork in Nevada, draws 1 000 people per day.

20

Prada Marfa, a "pop architectural land art project" is a three-hour drive from the nearest airport in a town of under 2 000 people and has become a symbol of the town and cultural landmark of the region.

21 https://www.city-journal.org/html/best-little-art-colony-texas-14737.html

Sweet spot: Matjiesfontein 2.0

The gap

The historic and picturesque village of Matjiesfontein trades only on its faded past.

22 The opportunity

Matjiesfontein has the chance to become the most insta-grammable village in South Africa.

If viewed and managed through the lens of a visitor attraction, the village can curate a valuable visitor experience with a minimum of one hour dwell time. Increased dwell time results in increased visitor spend on food and beverage, resulting in increased revenue for the village.

It's historic buildings, infused with culture and heritage, needs to be reinterpreted for the visual focus that attract travellers, especially millennials. A strong curated visual presence using the assets that the village currently has, would speak to the visual language traveller currently look for.

The most popular activity at Matjiesfontein is taking photos. Photography here has moved from recording memories of a holiday to capturing everything from an old English bus, the piano man to the local cat on the staircase.

23

The village of Matjiesfontein needs to take advantage of this behaviour and make everything the holiday money shot.

This approach will cause no harm to the historic nature of the town, but rather enhance it through restoration and reinterpretation.

This curated approach will help build an Instagram personality for the village, and encourage people to stop for more than a coffee, but rather an overnight stay as there is so much to photograph.

24 The current "yellow frame" is a poor attempt at this and should be relooked with a look and feel that is uniquely

Matjiesfontein. It’s current position does not enhance the Instagram status of the village either. It should be in a place that ensures the perfect photo opportunity (without the parking lot in the background).

25 An example of how this can be reinterpreted would be to use the town’s sign post and convert that into a “yellow frame”.

Authors picture below taken on the site is an example of a curated Instagram image that enhances the photographic status of Matjiesfontein.

26

27

Tourism Nuclei (seems to have dropped off, for the sake of consistency with other chapters here it is again)

Explanation up front in supply analysis.

Primary Nuclei

The SKD does not have a visitor attraction that currently acts as a primary nuclei, but its Slow Travel and Dark Skies are a unique opportunity to grow into immersive, authentic and transformative reasons to travel to this region, particularly

28 relevant in a world that is placing high value in slowing down whilst on holiday. The quiet open spaces of the SKD can become the primary reason to visit.

Aquila Game Reserve acts as a primary nuclei for those travellers that wish to see the Big 5 whilst in Cape Town.

Secondary Nuclei

Prince Albert, Matjiesfontein, Swartberg Circle Route and the Karoo National Park are all attractions that may be known pre- visit but are not ( yet) significant drawcards for international travellers. As all embody the Slow Travel aesthetic, they have the latent possibility to become primary nuclei as the embodiment of slow travel.

Tertiary Nuclei

The cultural and heritage museums in the region such as the Beaufort West Museum, Fossil Trail, heritage museums in

Prince Albert and the Laingsburg Flood Museum are all tertiary attractions that visitors discover only when in destination.

29