Language is still a major obstacle for Chinese travellers to South Africa as they say the country is ill-equipped to provide tour services in their own language. This is one of the reasons many Chinese tour groups opt to travel to SA in the company of their own tour guides.
"Most of the Chinese tourists who head to Africa are not that well-versed in English," Dai Bin, President of the China Tourism Academy, was quoted as saying in a Chinese newspaper. “Unlike Europe and the US where there are lots of Chinese tourist guides and signs written in Chinese, it is rare to see Chinese signs in Africa. The language barrier deters many Chinese customers from visiting the continent."
However, prior to 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup, the South African Department of Tourism, sent a number of South African tour guides to Beijing to receive experiential Chinese language training. At that time, Lulamile Stuurman, the Acting Director for Human Resources of the Tourism Department, said the Mandarin language training for the tourist guides addressed Chinese language skills shortage and also alleviated unemployment.
Most of the trained Mandarin-speaking guides however, seem to have settled in either Johannesburg or Cape Town. Bradley Brouwer, SA Tourism Regional Manager Asia Pacific, says there doesn’t seem to be any shortage of Mandarin-speaking guides in Gauteng or the Western Cape but language remains a huge problem in the rest of the country as the other provinces don’t seem to have any Chinese-speaking guides.
The lack of Chinese tour guides in South Africa isn’t the only reason why Chinese travellers insist on being accompanied by their own guides though. Says Brouwer: “It is law in China that a tour leader must attend each tourist group or MICE group to any destination worldwide. For FIT this is not required.” He says this doesn’t need to affect employment opportunities for South African guides though, as a registered South African tour guide is also required on each tour.
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