Africa-Press – Eswatini. LGBT+ activists believe homophobia negatively affects the country’s tourism sector.
According to the movement advocates, there is a huge economic cost to the prejudice, aversion and hatred of LGBT+ persons that the country is paying, especially since tourism is a crucial source of income for developing countries with small economies like Eswatini.
“LGBT+ rights go hand-in-hand with economic development and therefore governments that insist on maintaining the criminalisation of same-sex relations will continue to put their countries at a considerable economic disadvantage,” said Eswatini Sexual and Gender Minorities (ESGM) Board Chairperson Melusi Simelane.
Simelane said the country had a mandate to “ensure, ascertain and above all, appear to have the safety and serenity of its citizens and visitors (tourists) against any harm.”
“Unfortunately, we are living in a country that has decided to hold on to that create an unfavourable environment for LGBT+ persons,” he said.
He contended that when a county’s laws do not favour LGBT+ persons, it comprises their safety, which then automatically had an impact to the tourism sector, making an example of the incident that happened at Luyengo, where a group of LGBT+ persons who had attended the Bushfire Festival were assaulted.
“That attack has not created a favourable picture for safety of marginalised communities in Eswatini to potential visitors,” he remarked.
Activist Lindelwe ‘DK’ Dlamini supported Simelane’s assertions, and described it as ‘unfortunate’ since tourism had been an integral sector to improving the economic standing of many small economies such as Eswatini.
“We may not have the statistics, but there’s definitely negative impacts, because from personal experiences, I know of a number of people who have expressed uneasiness with coming to our country because of the status quo when it relates to LGBT+ persons,” said Dlamini.
“That Bushfire incident heightened fears, and that is definitely to the detriment of the tourism sector which is still trying to recover from the impact of the pandemic,” she added.
When quizzed on what can be done to improve this, they highlighted the importance of advocacy initiatives, to raise awareness and build social cohesion, especially at community level.
“That’s a good start but ultimately, having anti- discriminatory laws is the solution,” said Lindelwe.
“It is important for us to foster an equitable and just society where the marginalised are protected from the majoritarian ideology,” added Simelane.
Coming to what tourism establishments can do to curb homophobia; they suggested the adoption of anti-homophobia, biphobia and transphobia policies.
They also proposed that the industry works hand in hand with the movement to equip staff members on gender and sexual diversity issues to ensure that guests aren’t put off by something as small as being addressed by the wrong pronoun.
“It is disheartening to have someone address you by a pronoun with which you don’t identify with. It ruins the whole experience and excitement of visiting a new place and exploring it,” mentioned Dlamini.
Eswatini recorded 210 705 tourist arrivals last year, a four per cent increase from 2020’s which was however still 72 per cent below 2019’s.
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