Swaziland Tourism Authority says fewer people are visiting the kingdom from abroad than it had forecast.
I wonder if this is because the truth about what life is really like in Swaziland has spread into the international community.
Could it be that King Mswati III is putting off people from visiting?
Even travel writers - people whose job it is to recommend to readers of newspapers and magazines where to go on holiday - find they cannot ignore the repressive regime of the king.
The Independent - a major daily newspaper in the United Kingdom – published a two-page travel spread on Swaziland earlier this month (February 2009). After writing about the wild animals and the cultural village, the writer turned to the monarchy.
‘Certainly the current monarchy could do with its defenders. While democracy has taken root across the rest of southern Africa, political parties remain outlawed in Swaziland. Indeed, a new constitution approved in 2005 enshrined the king’s powers to appoint the prime minister, the cabinet and judiciary. It is claimed that seven out of 10 people live below the poverty line.
‘Meanwhile Mswati has not been the agent of social change that some had hoped for, continuing to snap up wives from among his subjects (13 and counting), and displaying an appetite for cars and palaces that suggests he does not share his late father's ascetic tendencies.
‘Small wonder then that the extravagant 40/40 celebrations held last September to celebrate the nation's simultaneous 40th anniversary of independence and the king's 40th birthday did not go down well in more progressive quarters.
‘Rumblings about the royal wives’ shopping trip to Dubai and a new fleet of Mercedes cars bought for the occasion culminated in protest marches through the capital. Some saw the spectacular pageantry, in which thousands of royal subjects donned ceremonial leopard skins and turaco feathers to hail their monarch, as mere orchestrated jubilation: the manipulation of culture for political gain.’
Who would want to visit a place like this?
The writer travelled to the kingdom as a guest of the Swaziland Tourist Authority – bet it’s kicking itself now.
See also
NIGHTMARE HOLIDAY IN SWAZILAND
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