South Africa’s travel and tourism industry is a world leader when it comes to social responsibility, and the Tourism White Paper is considered best practice worldwide, but child sex tourism remains to be addressed. This, together with the imminent boom in travel to South Africa in 2010, has led Fair Trade in Tourism South Africa (FTTSA) to urge industry players to sign up to an international code of conduct seeking to prevent child sex tourism.

The Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation in Travel and Tourism (www.thecode.org) was highlighted at industry workshops organised by FTTSA in Johannesburg and Cape Town in August.

Travel and tourism companies and organisations were urged to join over 250 companies from Europe, Asia and the Americas which voluntarily endorse the code. So far, Kenya is the only African country to have signed up.