Potchefstroom Warnings Or Dangers

Unfortunately South Africa has almost infinite tourist potential, but one of the major limiting factors in terms of tourists experiencing full value from their visit (and wanting to return) is the uneven quality of tourist services.

Staff in tourist offices are often poorly trained, clueless about the potential tourist attractions in the local area and/or don't have the ability or interest to anticipate and empathise with visitors' interests. Such was my recent experience in Potch, when I had the misfortune of wandering into the tourist office. Staff whose sole function should be to attend to the needs of the only tourist in the entire place (and, given that I was wearing jeans and T shirt, and had a camera hanging from one shoulder, I wasn't exactly difficult to identify as a visitor) instead persisted in pursuing a conversation of earsplitting volume, as well as obstructing my access to the brochures and pamphlets on display even after it became clear that I wanted to consult this material.

To further compound the problem, the tourist information on offer was generally unimaginative and uninformative. The worst offender was a glossy tourist brochure for North West province that must have cost a considerable amount to produce. On first glance, it seemed potentially interesting, until I realised that it failed to provide a single contact telephone number or website for any of the attractions featured other than the provincial tourist office! Given my experience with the Potch tourist office, the prospect of dealing with another one - and by phone - was just too grim to contemplate!

On a more positive note, my experience of the tourist office in Eshowe (KwaZulu Natal) - see my travel tip - reinforces that it is possible for South African tourist offices to provide world class service: it's just a matter of the Powers That Be making training and customer service an absolute priority, and not accepting substandard performance.