Day 1: You Want WHAT From This Indaba?

Here’s my column from Indaba Daily News (Day 1 - May 9, 2009)

Indaba Daily News is full colour, glossy, A3-size publication produced (under huge stress and with impossible deadlines) by Martin van Niekerk, Ben Rootman and the team from Junxion Communications.  It’s on the floor and ready for the delegates at South African Tourism’s annual trade show by 8:00 a.m. every day.

A special mailing of my column to This Tourism Week’s readers was sponsored by Innate Advertising.

You Want WHAT From This Indaba?
Martin Hatchuel

What do I want from this Indaba? Well, what do YOU want? After all, this IS the World Cup Indaba, isn’t it? I mean, we’ve just passed the 400 days-to-kick-off mark, next year is actually, like, 2010, and by the time we meet next May it’ll be too late.

So - what do I want from the World Cup Indaba?

Well, to tell you the truth, I’m here looking for answers to two questions that’ve been going around in what passes for my mind since Sepp Blatter’s Envelope Moment back in ‘04. (1) Yes - but what’s going to happen AFTERWARDS? And (2) will our boys make the final?

So whilst I’m here in Durbs first-and-foremost to look for stories about the tourism industry, where it’s going and how it’s going to get there, I also want to learn about the legacy of FIFA’s 2010 World Cup.

You have to give FIFA all credit - they saw that bringing the greatest show on earth to Africa would open doors to real development, and they’re making sure that’ll happen. But it’s what lies beyond them that fascinates me (disclosure time: amongst others, I work for Mossel Bay Tourism, and the town’s legacy projects - like its new training institute, which focuses on the FIFA languages - form an important part of my brief).

See, I think the greatest benefit of soccer is that it brings people into contact with one another at every level - which is exactly what tourism does. So it follows that the greatest legacy of the World Cup should be in the area in which you and I operate.

And so? Well, secretly (and don’t go blabbing this to everyone, you hear?) I don’t believe tourism will last too long into the future. Not tourism as we grognards know it, anyway - it’s already changed so much as to be almost indistinguishable from what it was ten, even five years ago. And I think the World Cup is forcing us to think in new, and fresh ways about our industry: who travels? Who WILL travel? And WHY?

And from questions like those - only good can come, wouldn’t you say?

Martin Hatchuel publishes This Tourism Week