Changing global views on SA's readiness

As the first major global sporting event to be hosted by an African nation, the 2010 Football World Cup is a historic event for South Africa and the African continent.

The country is investing over $3.7 billion to build stadiums, upgrade infrastructure and create a safe environment for the games and its estimated 450 000 spectators.

Given the historic nature of the event and Grail Research’s extensive experience on the African continent, in March 2009 we conducted an online media study of global perceptions about South Africa as the hosting nation for the 2010 Football World Cup.

Our review of blogs and other online forums globally revealed two key concerns: safety / security in South Africa (70 per cent of opinions were negative); and infrastructure readiness to host the event (56 per cent of opinions were negative), and we concluded at the time that the country had an uphill battle to build global confidence in their ability to host this historic event.

In March 2010, we ran a refresh of the same study and found marked improvement in global perceptions about South Africa’s ability to host this event. Most importantly for this country, where tourism is a big contributor to GDP, security concerns improved considerably from 70 per cent negative opinions in 2009 to 57 per cent negative opinions in 2010.

We believe that this is a result of the actions South Africa has taken over the past year, including a dedicated police force of 41 000 for the World Cup and a 24/7 multi-lingual helpline for visitors. This increase in security arrangements is visible on the streets from my personal travels to Johannesburg over the past year.

There are clearly more police on the streets and the highways now, compared to what I had observed when coming here in late 2008 and early 2009. South Africa also invested significantly in promoting the country through advertising campaigns globally and events hosting journalists from around the world to come, see and write about their preparation for the World Cup. Our online media study indicates that these investments are yielding results -- security concerns among non-South Africans have declined from 72 per cent negative opinions in 2009 to 61 per cent negative opinions in 2010.

Global perceptions about the country’s infrastructure readiness have also improved, particularly among non-South Africans. Opinions from the rest of the world on infrastructure readiness have improved from 81 per cent negative comments in 2009 to 65 per cent negative comments in 2010.

Most of the 10 stadiums for the 2010 World Cup are complete and others are expected to be complete on time. Airports have been upgraded, including the new King Shaka International Airport in Durban, and road transportation infrastructure has been improved at the cities hosting the games.

Ultimately, the proof is in the pudding, and South Africa has had a few chances in 2009 to prove their capability. They hosted the Fifa Confederations Cup in June 2009, often dubbed the ‘dress rehearsal’ to the Fifa World Cup, and it went off very well, leading the Fifa president, Sepp Blatter, to say: “Fifa definitely has trust and confidence in South Africa. We saw that the 2009 Fifa Confederations Cup was well organised, so now it is time for the whole world to put its trust in South Africa’s ability to host the 2010 Fifa World Cup”.

South Africa also hosted the Indian Premier Cricket League in April/May 2009, which was particularly interesting because the venue was changed from India to South Africa at the last minute (three weeks before the scheduled start of the event) because of security concerns in India.

The 2010 Fifa World Cup is a unique opportunity to showcase this nation and the African continent to the rest of the world. We wish South Africa the best of luck and will be back in August after the event with results and analysis of a global mobile survey checking on people’s actual experience, having seen the country host the 2010 World Cup.

Kurian Thomas
Grail Research
Managing Director, Middle East and Africa