Following concerns over the safety of visitors at Table Mountain National Park ahead of the 2023/24 festive season travel period, SANParks reported that the park managed to reduce crime-related incidents affecting visitors and attracted positive visitor numbers during this period.
SANParks head of Communications, JP Louw, said the park received more than 1.7M tourists to the park between December 2023 and January 2024.
“The most popular tourist attractions in Cape Town included SANParks products namely, Cape Point, Boulders, and Table Mountain Aerial Cableway,” said Louw.
SANParks also said that the number of crime-related incidents affecting visitors dropped significantly from 33 in November, to six and 1 in December and January, respectively.
Last November, the spike in muggings at the park prompted calls for better public safety resulting in the formation of the mountain safety initiative and representatives from several city mountain groups met to coordinate mountain patrols as part of measures increase existing security measures on Table Mountain.
SANParks has attributed the reduction in muggings at TMNP to its collaboration with key stakeholders and the re-establishment of the Table Mountain Safety Forum.
Louw also said that Western Cape Government’s Department of Police Oversight and Community Safety also recently handed over a drone donation to the park to assist with aerial surveillance and help SANParks rangers during search and rescue operations.
The body responsible for the management and upkeep of South Africa’s national parks, also said that although more than 100 fires were reported to TMNP during the 2023/2024 fire season, no loss of houses, life, or critical infrastructure in or adjacent to the park were reported.
“Our teams including aerial resources are deployed immediately to fires to put them out before 90 minutes,” said SANParks.