...hang from the head of the mule
Tourists to South Africa are breaking all records this year, the cabinet has been told. Cabinet spokesperson Themba Maseko said that the 4.7 million visitors in the first seven months of this year were the highest for this period, a 15.8 percent increase from last year's figure.
Maseko told a media briefing yesterday that the rapid growth was "exceeding even our positive expectations".
The fastest growth was in visitors from Africa and the Middle East, which jumped more than 20 percent, followed by the 11 percent increase from the Americas. Australia and Asia improved 8 percent, but Europe, which was already high, grew only 3 percent.
Business Report | Tourist numbers to SA are breaking records
South Africa's medical tourism industry has skyrocketed with the number of overseas patients drawn by 'scalpel safari' packages more than doubling in three years, an expert said on Friday.
The booming sector now earns $37-million (28-million euros) annually, Martin Kelly, president of the Association for Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons, told AFP, underlining that this was a fraction of the potential. Industry estimates predict that about 20 000 health travellers will visit South Africa in 2006, up from around 8 000 in 2003.
"South Africa has a very good reputation internationally for the quality of its medical service facilities and because it's cheaper," Kelly said. People are jetting in for nips and tucks, organ transplants and orthopaedic surgery and then soaking up the South African sunshine at world renowned game parks, spectacular mountains and pristine beaches, he said.
Independent Online | SA medical tourism booms
South Africans should not be surprised at the anger and brutality that was sweeping the streets when they continued to refuse to acknowledge the socio-economic inequalities in the country, Dr Mamphela Ramphele said on Thursday.
Ramphele, one of the World Bank's four managing directors, was speaking in Cape Town at a conference reflecting on the work of the former Truth and Reconciliation Commission and its continuing worldwide impact.
She said the drafters of the TRC's terms of reference had been timid in limiting its mandate to crimes against humanity defined solely in political terms. Excluding crimes perpetrated in socio-economic terms in South Africa had been a great mistake, because the majority of the people in the country "continue to bleed", she said.
Their wounds were unrecognised, and their pain was totally unacknowledged.
Mail & Guardian | Don't be surprised at violence in SA
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