Accommodation Companies
Safety of tourists
The safety of our tourists has become one of the largest focus points in our development plan. Private security companies are in most cases better to contact as they often respond faster than the police.
Although security is a function on the Enjoy Life phone app, it cannot be the only reason why we ask foreigners to install the app. We must provide services out of the restaurant and fast-food industries so that people will install the app for additional reasons.
We involve approximately 948 Ambassadors in the property industry positioned across the country to work in this project. These agents will (when we prepare for launch) visit within a 2 week period restaurants and fast-food business owners within their towns and arrange that these companies can register without any costs on the technology platform.
We cannot focus on the safety aspect too much when we encourage tourists to download the Enjoy South Africa App, it might have a negative impact on tourism. The app will then more likely be installed if we convey a message that we manage a tourism app with a lot of tourism features, including exceptional restaurant and fast-food deals.
The following incident is just one example why the Homecare team decided that safety support should receive high priority:
Ukrainian hiker: Hout Bay residents gather, leave flowers at spot where he was killed
Hout Bay residents gathered at the spot where a Ukrainian tourist was stabbed to death to pay their last respects on Sunday.
Around 50 people stood in a circle at the East Fort, surrounded by security officials, in remembrance of the 44-year-old man who was mugged for a backpack while walking on the trail on Saturday morning and left for dead.
Weekend Argus identified him as Ivan Ivanov, who had been staying in a local guesthouse and had been warned against hiking along that path alone, even though it was generally regarded as a safe route.
Western Cape police spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Andrè Traut said three men had taken the man's backpack, which contained his personal effects, and fled.
Neighbourhood watch members caught one man, 25, allegedly in possession of the stolen items.
He is expected to appear in the Wynberg Magistrate's Court on Monday.
Andrè van Schalkwyk, chairperson of the Table Mountain Safety Action Group, told News24 on Saturday the attack took place a mere 10m up the trail, not far from the car park.
The vicinity is quite overgrown, he said, but is not currently flagged as a hotspot.
The incident is not the first robbery at East Fort but there hasn't been one for a "long time".
On Sunday, people left bunches of flowers on the side of the trail.
Provincial Community Safety MEC Albert Fritz condemned the murder.
He called for greater integration between the South African Police Service, law enforcement, SA National Parks and the SA National Defence Force on intelligence gathering and sharing to prevent crime displacement.
"I wish his family my deepest condolences during this difficult time and call on the police to urgently apprehend each criminal involved in the attack," said Fritz.
"We cannot allow crime to threaten the well-being of people, tourism and the economy. I want to make it clear that Cape Town remains open for business and tourism."
Our solution to support tourists
The Homecare team decided based on this article, that we must include unique features in the Enjoy South Africa app that can prevent such tragedies. We will be to inform a tourist when he/she enters a "Hot Spot" and send a message to the person's phone where we will suggest that the person invite more people to join him on the trail. Larger groups have a smaller risk of being mugged.
We will inform the app user that he/she will be able to set a radius on his/her phone, and we can identify how many other foreigners from the same country is in that specific area. An Ukrainian in Cape Town might want to know how many other Ukrainians is currently in the country. It is information that is currently not available to tourists.
We develop a "mini Facebook friends" network on the phone for the period that the person is in our country. The Ukrainian can then invite other tourists to join him/her on the walk. (It will also be possible to invite tourists from other countries.)
The Homecare team will be working with tour operators and tour guides which you will read about later in the website. It will be possible for the tourist to indicate on the Enjoy South Africa app that he/she intends to do a hike on a specific date/time slot. We can then send an invitation to local tour guides who might be willing to support the tourist. Almost like an invitation where they can offer their services. These tour guides can be identified and approved by the local Safety Action Groups.
Private Security Options
There are currently 4 options that we investigated and discus in short
1) CASI
We cannot use media portrayed on the CASI platform to encourage foreigners to download a Security App platform. When you open the CASI link above in orange, you will see that CASI relies on certain media to sell their products to South Africans. Without such media, CASI will not secure support from South Africans. CASI cannot change their strategy into Enjoying South Africa...
2) PROJECT HELP
The media on Project Help is even more aggressive than on CASI. When you open the project help link above in orange, you will see that we cannot use such media to support foreigners. Project Help is also more expensive than CASI.. (R59 per month per phone user in stead of R35 per month for armed response support)
3) Namola
The Namola media platform is better, and will also be used to support foreigners. Namola make use of volunteers to support phone users in need of numerous services. As far as we know, they do not pay security companies a fixed fee for support. We will soon set-up a meeting with the group to get more detail about a partnership.
4) Aura
Aura is purely a support service. They do not offer an app to the public directly. We can use their support structure as back-end service on the Enjoy Life or Enjoy South Africa phone apps.
Security is such an important aspect which we discuss in detail under “Accommodation bookings & Transport” that we must implement strategies to prevent bad things from happening, and furthermore, if bad things happened, that we will use the best strategy to say sorry for what happened.
We include a link for readers to view. Aura provide support services where a client could be reached in certain areas within 5 minutes. https://coverage.aura.services/
Most security companies sell for example security devices to hotels, guesthouses etc. The problem with that is that when you give a client a security device, that you then acknowledge the huge problem regarding security risks. Security buttons/devices has a negative connotation towards tourism when foreigners return to their home countries and explain that they received devices to protect them.
It is such a challenge to address the security issues in the correct manner. We cannot tell the world that we are afraid ourselves. Nobody wants to go to a country where the people residing in the country feels unsafe.
The truth is, that we should acknowledge the risks. It is foolish to deny the risks foreigners have when they visit South Africa.
Our solution that we explain under “Accommodation bookings & Transport” is executable and will help our “Key Partners” to secure more business.
