Sun City, the resort that refused to fade away

The past is a curious thing. Depending on your age and your background, you might fetishize things that happened pre-1994 or demonise them, but sometimes there are institutions that have successfully straddled both eras.

A great example is Sun City, nestled in the crater of the extinct Pilanesberg volcano.

Even now, it’s difficult to comprehend the vision and the determination of one man, Sol Kerzner, to turn a piece of very picturesque, though barren, bushveld into not one, but four distinct hotels serving different markets and providing a variety of entertainment from gambling to leisure, beauty pageants, music stars and even international sport, from boxing to golf.

The dawn of democracy should have been the end of it, since every one of the nine new provinces got gaming licences and Gauteng, long the source of much of its major clientele, was quickly spoilt for choice with everything from reimagined Tuscany to ancient Rome and even a concrete circus tent competing with Kerzner’s ersatz Rider Haggard meets Las Vegas.

But it never happened, Sun City continues to this day, holding its own, a major international tourist attraction in its own right, still pulling in the locals from day-trippers to convention-goers and, most importantly, providing jobs for the local community.

There has been a lot of reinvestment since the first hotel was opened back in 1979 and there has been a halo effect on the surroundings, with other businesses coming in to invest.

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What makes it even more remarkable is that this didn’t happen with its sibling operations, many of which lost their gaming licences and ended up deserted, while some of the newer casinos that were built never came close to the promise that our founding fathers – and mothers – hoped would replicate the boon that Sun City was for the erstwhile Bophuthatswana.

There were many accusations against Kerzner, all quaintly trivial now in the light of the revelations that we have had to endure in recent years, but no-one has really given him the credit he deserves.

He redefined hotels, hospitality and entertainment in this country.

Whatever your views are on gambling, he created jobs where there were none and invested in areas that no business person had ventured into before.

Perhaps his greatest reward is that his original project lives on.

It’s an enduring legacy that not too many others can boast of.

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