CONCERNS have been raised on the marketing campaign by SA Tourism, only focusing on Western Town.
The Ad features globetrotter and comedian par-excellence Trevor Noah, whom the campaign was reported to have controversially paid Trevor R33million.
But that was disputed by Tourism minister Patricia de Lille, and instead noted the funds came from the Tourism Business Council of South Africa.
This was confirmed by the CEO Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa of TBCSA, who said “we do not get any mandate from Gvt what do to with our funds”.
Private businesses fund the Tourism Business Council of South Africa in its entirety, he said.
Tshivhengwa says Noah was not paid the amount in question. Considering the comedian’s usual rate, Noah was “generous” and accepted “a small fee”.
“Whatever was announced as the amount of money paid to Trevor is false. It’s far from the truth. Trevor has been generous to us. He agreed to do this the ad for a very small fee.
Even though he’s an international star who charges in international currencies, he agreed to do this as part of promoting the country that he loves and we paid him a small fee to do that.
He argues the Ad is a long term investment for SA.
Now that the Ad has been flighted globally, mzansi is up in arms on why it features Western Town only, not other provinces.
On why the Ad only shows the good part, Tshivhengwa lamented that: ‘We’re always honest about the realities of South Africa, but we are always going out there putting our best foot forward.
We show the best of us South Africa on the world stage – we don’t sell the worst of us. We need to solve these problems at home.
You invite people to have the best time and make sure everyone goes back home with a positive view of South Africa, despite the challenges we have. The challenges we have in South Africa are not unique to us; many other countries face bigger challenges than we have, but we’ll always put our best foot forward,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Committee on Tourism has welcomed the news that R115 million from the Tourism Marketing South Africa voluntary levies was eventually transferred and paid to SAT.
It also noted Trevor Noah advertisement did not affect the amount paid over to SAT.
However, the committee expressed a concern over value for money, as R33 million was spent on the short clip that claimed to promote South Africa, while confining itself to the Western Cape in a country that is rich in terms of other tourism destinations.
I guess we shall not establish the ‘generous or small fee’ the comedian was paid.
