It is activities packed month for South
Africa Tourism. All the country’s nine provinces have programmes lined
up to welcome the scourge of tourists visiting. There is the launch of
the greater Mapungubwe Heritage route in Limpopo province, the
Celebrating Durban in Kwazulu Natal province, the National Parks week
launch in Mpumalanga province, the Sidibelo Cultural Festival in North
West, the Cradle Festival in the Gauteng province.
There is also the Visit to Dinosaur Park
in the Golden Gate, Free State, the Maloof Cup in Northern Cape, the
Winelands Tourism Launch in the Western Cape and the World Tourism Day
Celebrations in the Eastern Cape province.
The combination of these events is expected to bring in a quarter of a million more tourists in the month of September alone.
Tourist from Nigeria is blossoming as
well. The April figure alone this year shows 1,555 and a total of 6,051
more Nigerians visiting South Africa. Between January 2012 and April
end, the figure is a staggering 23,117. They include the rich, students
on vacation camps, business men looking for new deals and curious
Nigerian tourists who want to see whales exhale in the Atlantic around
the Cape Town harbor area and the amazing table mountains that has
piqued the interest of all great and good.
“We have to first get our regulatory
framework right if we have move the sector forward and to achieve what
this country has achieved to get the tourist to come,“ Edem Duke, the
minister of Tourism, Culture and National Orientation tells BusinessDay,
when asked what we have to do to get tourist come to Nigeria in similar
numbers.
“We need to also need to create a better
understanding of the contribution of the sector to the economy. It is
not speculative. These are achievable goals which we have seen other
countries achieve and we can see the outcome. This is the only sector
that has not benefitted from any financial intervention in the last 30
years. Every other sector has benefitted and we can see the result,” he
says.
Majority of the tourists come to Cape
Town. The city-an all encompassing city of hotels, eateries, malls,
electrifying harbor side, exciting night life, entertainment -is home to
the world’s only 6 star hotel, aptly named One & Only, hundreds of
yacht berths, waters deep enough to accommodate super yachts, super
tankers, seals, whales, sharks and super rich apartments. The
magnificent Table Mountains loom in the background like the city’s
guardian angel.
In Cape Town, you can while away your
days looking for the mix of glamour and scenery. Some have criticized
the city as laid back but it has plenty of soul and topping the chart as
South Africa’s top tourism destination.
Grand mansions dot the wind-swept lanes
of the city, hinting at it’s the legislative importance, its unique
plant life, especially the famous shrubby ‘fynbos’ or the ‘fine bush’.
If you are not the type that hangs
around the hotel lobby on a weekend evening, then you can head up to the
‘Long Street’ for a taste of a very high life and encounter beautiful
Europeans who’d flown in for the weekend.
The Long Street is mix of soft hangout, big name Djs and the hard clubbing.
Nigerian’s in the city will hang out in
and around the Olimp sports bar on 120 Loop Street, for Nigerian
cuisines, gyrating sounds by Nigerian artists. The bar which opened for
business in February 2012 has hosted top dignitaries from Nigeria.
Local wineries offer tastings and
informative tours. September is the best time to visit the west coast,
John, my city guide tells me. It is the period when wild flowers bloom
in amazing colour formation.
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