"Forty-thousand new prostitutes. As if we do not have enough people of our own, we have to import them to ensure our visitors are entertained," said David Bayever, the deputy chairman of the Central Drug Authority (CDA), on Thursday.
He was speaking in Pretoria at the release of the International Narcotics Control Board's annual report.
"This defies the decline of four percent that the global travel industry experienced last year as traveller markets reeled from the effects of the global financial crisis. I believe it strongly reaffirms the vitality of our tourism industry," [Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk said].
Tourism contributes more than 8 percent to South Africa's economy and the government plans to raise that to more than 10 percent in the next few years.
"There's no doubt that Durban has its problems, with crime rates that might scare off some tourists, but it also has so much to offer to the educated traveller... (With) the world's biggest international party - the World Cup - and you have a must-see destination for 2010," [writes travel industry publisher Bootsnall Travel Network].
Durban comes in at number nine, ahead of Fukuoka, Japan.
Other destinations on the top 10 list are: Iceland; Sighisoara, Romania; the Philippines; Split, Croatia; British Columbia, Canada; Scotland; and Pucon, Chile. New Zealand is at number one.
The South Coast managed to secure the powerful Algerian football team's 2010 base camp at its Mondazur Hotel at the luxurious San Lameer resort in a dramatic twist that saw the North Coast's lavish five-star Fairmont Zimbali Resort lose out.
Zimbali seemed a sure bet, and even Fifa's original list last week showed Algeria were going there. But Algeria reportedly complained that Zimbali was too pricey, and were even talking to potential Eastern Cape base camp sites.
Johannesburg city councilman Parks Tau said Soccer City - the largest stadium built for a football World Cup, with a capacity of 90 000 - had gone R1 billion over budget to cost R3.2bn.
The venue, which will host the opening and closing matches of the June 11-July 11 tournament, was handed over to the city by the Aveng construction group with 99 days to go before it kicks off.
Both tourism leaders - speaking at separate events more than a week apart in the city - made almost identical declarations about Durban's fortunate 2010 position. But they both also asked the industry and South Africans alike to seize the "once-in-a-lifetime" opportunity and promote the World Cup.
Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk said the World Cup, which kicks off in less than 100 days, would help to push up the number of tourists visiting the country to 10 million this year, a figure many thought South Africa would never achieve.
"What we will do this year is to achieve what many people said four, five years ago was impossible. This year we will receive 10-million foreign tourists and that, in our view, is a major achievement."
I paid R7 at the door and was told a beer costs R15. The sex workers charge R50 for “a round” and the same for a blow job.
Each room has two beds and a mattress and doubles up as a kitchen. The girls rent out the rooms, with at least five sharing a room.
“It will be business as usual for us during the World Cup,” says one of them.
Despite these efforts, the environmental cost of the World Cup will be heavy. The "carbon footprint" is estimated at the equivalent of 2.75-million tonnes of carbon dioxide, nine times higher than the World Cup in Germany in 2006 and more than twice as high as the Beijing Olympics.
Simple geography is the main reason: foreign visitors will travel a total of 7.1 million kilometres (4.4 million miles) to cheer their teams at the southern tip of Africa, their planes emitting tonnes of carbon.
Four of the new six stadiums built for the event are fully complete. Work at Soccer City, the tournament's main venue, and Mbombela in Nelspruit continues and is expected to be wrapped up soon.
In Cape Town all eight World Cup soccer matches are sold out, the R4.5 billion stadium is complete and the city boasts the country's best World Cup soccer pitch.
"In Brazil we're concerned about the stadiums we will have," Raposo said during a recent interview at Soccer City stadium in Johannesburg. "I think it will be difficult to compete with the stadiums that Africa has [built]."
Raposo, a producer at Bandeirantes TV in Sao Paulo, is one of 120 international and local journalists currently touring South Africa's 10 host stadiums on a trip initiated by FIFA and the Local Organising Committee (LOC).
This was one way of combating the expected spike in absenteeism over the tournament, said Toska Kouskos, head of health management solutions at Alexander Forbes.
A report last year predicted that World Cup absenteeism would cost South African employers R750-million.
However, Kouskous said there were things that could be done to combat workers skiving off.
While it was difficult to predict how much extra beer would be consumed, it was estimated that SAB would sell an additional 100 000 hectolitres of beer during the five-week World Cup period.
This equates to about 20-million 500ml beers or 30-million 340ml beers.
"This is over and above normal consumption during the June/July period," SAB 2010 marketing manager Alastair Hewitt said in a statement.
“From time to time we had to put on some pressure but I never had any doubt. Now it's time for the world of football to accept the tournament will go ahead in South Africa," he said.
“We have come a long way to where we stand now only 100 days from kick off. It has been a long road paved with trust and confidence but with patience as well,” Blatter said, repeating a well-worn theme of several months.
"Very little" of the accommodation previously reserved for Match had been sold, said South African National Parks tourism and marketing manager Glenn Phillips.
So far, through Match, they had about 50 bookings in Skukuza and 16 bookings in three other camps.
Match is a company contracted by Fifa to provide ticketing, accommodation and event information technology for the World Cup.
Come June, [local organising committee CEO Danny Jordaan] said, "This stadium is going to introduce the kind of World Cup that we want to see in South Africa. An African World Cup in a world class facility".
The initial deadline for delivery had been mid-March.
The grounds around the stadium, located between the famous township of Soweto and downtown Johannesburg, remain filled with construction equipment.
But the stadium will still be handed over Wednesday to local officials, who will then deliver it Fifa, said Sibongile Masibuko, the provincial head of World Cup preparations.
When World Cup officials on a tour of South Africa's showpiece venues arrived at the ground today, they were confronted with a brown sandpit colonised by dozens of birds. They now face a race against time to get the stadium ready for the first game between Honduras and Chile on 16 June, followed by Italy against New Zealand on 20 June. There is local speculation that another pitch failure could force Fifa to switch the fixtures to a different venue.
Conflicting official explanations of what has gone wrong served only to sow confusion on a tour of nine cities.
The poorest group of adults -- earning up to R50000 a year -- shrank by just 7000 between 2007 and last year, a report by the University of SA's Bureau of Market Research showed last week. In absolute terms, the number of people in this category dipped to 23503512, down from 23510969.
While grim, it is not all bad. The number of poorest hardly moved in absolute terms, but did decrease as a proportion of the total population, from 77,9% to 75,4%.
Local and international media were shocked when they discovered that the pitch is yet to be laid at the R1,2bn Nelspruit stadium after England experts recommended that the grass be completely stripped as it was not growing according to plan.
Secretary-general Jerome Valcke said Fifa was confident there was still enough time to complete the stadium before the start of the June 11-July 11 global showpiece.