S. Africa Tourism Head: Forget 2010 World Cup, If This Is The Best We Can Do On Electricity

Johannesburg - South Africa's energy crisis raises serious questions about its ability to successfully host the 2010 World Cup, the head of the Southern Africa Tourism Services Association (SATSA) said Wednesday, following days of crippling power outages. South Africa is suffering acute energy shortages, resulting in countrywide power cuts lasting several hours at a time as state electricity provider Eskom tries to cover demand.

"Stadia may have all the most wonderful generators in the world to broadcast the games, but will people come to South Africa to see them if they know that they will be going back to hotels and guest houses with no power?" SATSA CEO Michael Tatalias asked. No power meant "no hot meals, no clean laundry, no lights," Tatalias said.

Even if football fans were prepared to brave the threat of blackouts, which state electricity supplier Eskom has warned could continue for another five years, they face difficulties getting to games on time if street lights are out, SATSA warned. "We have to ask ourselves honestly if we can still do this," Tatalias urged.

Loadshedding - Eskom's term for cutting power to some areas when demand is too tight - is estimated to have set businesses back tens of millions of dollars since the beginning of the year.

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/177273,forget-the-world-cup-tourism-chief-tells-south-africa.html

tourists all the time go to parts of africa that have WAY more problems with rolling blackouts, hotels having to run off generators, and power outages than j'burg does, they often visit areas where there is no electricity at all or electricity for only 2 hours a day in the evening, a few glitches in an otherwise modern city like j'burg are not going to scare off too many

the cable cars hanging up w. the tourists was unfortunate, but if this happened in some other african nations, would it even be a blip on the news? south africa is more developed and i guess we have higher expectations but who honestly will say that they will stay home from world cup because of a small chance of a temporary power outage or rolling blackout during their visit?

if the speech is to get locals motivated to fix the problem, fine, and i think it will be fixed

if it's indulging in hysteria, the dude needs to get some perspective

they can do this just fine and it is something they have been highly anticipating to bring attention to change (not to mention hard currency) to south africa

you can't build a nation just on re-opening some gold mines, and sport is one of the ways that bond people in a city or a nation

Gazans would not be concerned by the trivial
inconvienience of having electricity
for only one hour per day.

presumtuous western tourists
will be dissapointed

for one thing this person's statement is a wild exaggeration and he's just having a fit of nerves

there is no way that j'burg is going to be down to having electricity an hour or two a day during world cup! the lights will be on just fine

i suspect most western tourists who have never visited this city before will be surprised to see how modern it is