It’s UN World Tourism Day. Inevitably, today you’ll see plenty of posts celebrating tourism and promoting destinations, experiences and products. And tourism is amazing! It can open our eyes to new places, cultures and experiences, create memorable connections and provide important economic opportunities. But World Tourism Day is about more than simply celebrating holidays and destinations. The day aims to raise awareness of tourism’s contribution to:
- Local and national economies
- Employment and business opportunities
- Cultural heritage and communities
- Sustainable tourism
- Tourism’s environmental impacts
- Making tourism more inclusive and accessible
These are values that sit at the heart of Dreamcatcher South Africa’s work.
Tourism that benefits local communities
Through award-winning programmes such as Homestay™ and CookUp with Kamamma™, we are proud to have developed and supported community enterprises that create employment and income opportunities for local people. Crucially, our programmes also aim to spread the geographical reach of tourism, helping to ensure that its benefits are not concentrated in traditional tourist areas. When you choose to travel with Dreamcatcher South Africa – whether you stay with a local host, eat locally or take part in a community tour – 90% of your booking goes directly to the enterprises providing these experiences. This helps keep tourism income within the local economy, where it circulates through local businesses, supports livelihoods and creates opportunities for the people and communities who welcome our visitors. It is here that universal understandings are built.
The remaining 10% contributes to our non-profit development fund, supporting the administration and coordination of our programmes and integrated community development projects focused on improving quality of life in the communities where we work. Through this work, we identify challenges that can inhibit sustainable community growth and work with local communities to co-create and deliver projects designed to enable meaningful and measurable change.
Celebrating culture and tackling waste
Tourism can also provide an opportunity to celebrate and protect local culture, heritage and the environment. Through programmes such as PaintUp with Kamamma™ and Made in Melkhoutfontein™, we share local stories, creativity and heritage, while also addressing challenges such as waste and creating opportunities from materials that might otherwise be discarded. These programmes demonstrate that tourism doesn’t have to be something that simply happens to a community. It can be something that is developed with and by the community.
Investing in the next generation
And importantly, our work isn’t just about today’s visitors. Visitors take their experiences home with them, sharing their stories with family and friends, while we invest in young people too. Through our DC Kids programme in Melkhoutfontein, which typically runs three days a week and more frequently during school holidays, we provide a safe and nurturing space for local young people, including providing nutritious food. They also have the opportunity to meet international visitors, share their stories, learn about different cultures, exchange skills and knowledge and, importantly, have fun. For us, this is what meaningful tourism can look like: creating connections between visitors and communities while generating tangible local benefits.
Going Truly Local™
Over the last few months alone, our Dreamcatcher South Africa Kamammas have welcomed more than 60 international visitors plus domestic tourists, providing them with the opportunity to ‘Go Truly Local™’ and experience South Africa through its people, communities and places that make it unique. Together, these recent visits have generated 287 bed nights with Kamammas, alongside other tourism services such as meals, CookUp with Kamammas, community tours and peripheral services and events. This totals 1,016 tourism related services to visitors, which excludes other spending within the local community and businesses in the communities and towns they visit and pass through. And October is already looking busy, including welcoming a delegation of teachers and head teachers from the Netherlands.
Enhancing the Tourism Experience
When we travel, the choices we make about where we stay, eat, visit and spend our money can help shape the benefits tourism brings to the places we visit. At Dreamcatcher South Africa, we believe that going local can add value to mainstream tourism. By incorporating locally owned businesses, community experiences and places beyond the established tourist routes into a wider itinerary, visitors can discover a different side of a destination while helping to spread the economic benefits of tourism more widely. This might mean staying with a local host, enjoying a community meal, taking a local tour, meeting residents, visiting a local enterprise or exploring an area that isn’t traditionally part of the tourist circuit. These experiences can add depth and diversity to a trip, while helping tourism income stay within and circulate through local communities. In this way, the route can be as important as the destination. Integrating local experiences into mainstream tourism creates opportunities for more communities to benefit from visitors, while giving travellers a richer and more diverse experience of the places they visit and, importantly, of the country. For us, this is what Going Truly Local™ is about – enhancing the tourism experience while helping to ensure its benefits are shared more widely.
Tourism has enormous potential to bring people together, support local economies and create meaningful connections between visitors and communities. At Dreamcatcher South Africa, we want to help make those connections happen – creating tourism that connects, contributes and creates opportunities for local communities.
Happy UN World Tourism Day! 🌍
