‘Badly designed’ computer system leaves tour guides out in the cold

SA’s Covid-battered tourism has suffered another blow as prospective tour guides battle to get officially registered so they can work legally.

Almost no guides were registered between October 2019 and July this year, thanks to unresolved issues in a new computer system installed by Cathsseta, the tourism industry’s statutory education and training authority.

The contract – allegedly worth R3.1m – was handed to relatively unknown IT service provider Dajo Technologies in October, after which Cathsseta went offline.

For prospective guides this has meant months of struggle to get their official accreditation – or quitting.

It was normal that newly developed systems would have “implementation challenges”, said acting Cathsseta CEO Lebogang Mpye.

“The system was implemented within the set timelines, [but] migration of data took longer than anticipated, and the training of end users was interrupted by the Covid-19 outbreak.”

In an October parliamentary portfolio committee meeting on tourism, Cathsseta admitted to DA shadow tourism minister Manny de Freitas that there had been a problem but tried to blame it on the pandemic.

It’s been like trying to get blood from a rock.

—  Adventure tour operator Cameron Stork

Dajo Technologies system developer Sandra Musengi said the company was not aware of any problems with the system.

“We interact with Cathsseta on a daily basis, and whatever issues any system has, they would raise them and they would get resolved.”

The company had been retained on a one-year contract. She referred further questions to Cathsseta.

Those in the tourism sector, however, said they felt the effects of the system not working.

Cameron Stork, who runs a whitewater rafting company in Parys, Free State, began training as a lead guide in 2016. Nearly four years later, he still had not received his Cathsseta learner’s number.

“It’s been a giant mess-up,” he said. “Without the proper paperwork you can’t do anything. It’s been like trying to get blood from a rock.”

Stork, who has since deregistered as a learner, had spent an estimated R4,000 in registration fees.

He now has to contract other guides to help run his trips.

Adventure guide Alberto Shanbo also battled for more than a year to get his official accreditation when the new system was implemented.

“I was registered with Cathsseta then they changed the system,” he said.

Shanbo’s records, however, did not appear on the new system and he was forced to register again.

“It make things very difficult for us,” he said.

After writing her final exams in March, cultural guide Dorie Olivier submitted her paperwork to Cathsseta for registration, believing she would receive her accreditation almost immediately, but it took weeks of phone calls and e-mail just to establish they had her paperwork at all.

In September, Cathsseta told her trainer, Scott Womack, owner of the Tourist Guide Institute, that all the forms submitted by the group he had trained were out of date and could not be backdated.

“Cathsseta requested that the whole group’s registration forms should be submitted,” said Olivier.

Illegal guiding is a major problem in the country.

—  Andrew Friedemann, founder of the Adventure Qualifications Network

Part of the problem was processing delays meant that certified documents expired before being processed and Olivier and the other prospective guides in the group had to resubmit all their paperwork.

Womack, who trains groups of up to 30 people at a time, said submitting the information for a group of 15 people on the new system took him nearly six hours compared with “half a day for 20 to 30 people” on the previous system.

“It’s an extremely badly designed system,” he said.

Andrew Friedemann, founder of the Adventure Qualifications Network, an adventure guide training organisation, said it would become a lot more difficult and more expensive to become a tour guide and there could be an increase in illegal guiding as a result.

“Illegal guiding is a major problem in the country,” he said.

Research showed there were some 8,000 adventure guides working in SA, of whom an estimated 6,500 were working illegally.

“Illegal guiding provides bad service, which means we get a bad name internationally and it takes food from the table of people who have become qualified and registered.”

There could also be severe legal consequences for guides who operated illegally, said Womack.

“Ninety percent of the time it’s probably not going to be picked up,” he said. “But if something happens to a guest and there’s legal ramifications, insurance is not going to pay out.”