 |
| Tourism Minister Patricia de Lille and Director of Google South Africa Alistair Mokoena in Parliament, Cape Town on Monday, 13 November 2023 at the signing of a collaborative agreement on promoting safe tourism. (Photo: Samane Jnr Marks) |
Tourism Minister Patricia de Lille and Prof Alistair Mokoena, country director for Google South Africa, have signed a collaborative agreement in Parliament to promote South Africa as a safe tourist destination. The agreement follows incidents of stone-throwing and attacks on motorists near the N2 in recent months. On November 3, a US tourist was shot in the face and robbed after leaving Cape Town International Airport, allegedly due to a navigation app suggesting the most direct route was through Nyanga township.
Google has been in touch with city officials and identified crime hotspots, including Nyanga and the airport intersection, which will soon no longer be recommended by Google as the fastest routes to the city. Mokoena stated that Google considers driver and commuter safety as a priority and is working with all role players, including car rental companies, to ensure everyone is warned and given information.
The tourism department has developed a solution with Google since 2014 when the City of Cape Town became the most-desired city in the world. They designed an open data portal and overlaid all decisions at all levels and departments in the city with digital technology. De Lille believes it is compulsory for the government to use technology and believes that the quicker they can pick up the technology, the better it will be for the tourism sector.
In March 2023, Leonie van der Westhuizen died after a rock shattered her car window and struck her in the head, triggering cardiac arrest. In July, Lucilla Vlok, a 21-year-old student from Inscape in Stellenbosch, had her jaw fractured when a rock was hurled through her car window while driving on the N2 to Cape Town International Airport.
