Address by the KwaZulu-Natal MEC for Economic Development and Tourism, the Honourable Michael Mabuyakhulu, on the occasion of the CEOs breakfast at the 2010 Indaba Tourism Trade Show 8 May 2010
Programme director
Ministers present
Captains of the industry present
Tourism stakeholders present
Dignitaries present
Ladies and gentlemen
All protocol observed
On behalf of the people of KwaZulu-Natal, we wish to start by welcoming all the delegates, in particular all the CEOs who are with us this morning, to our province and to the indaba which over the years has become one of the world's premier tourism trade shows.
We are truly honoured as the province of KwaZulu-Natal that we have, like in previous years, been given this opportunity to host this trade spectacle which has not only grown in leaps and bounds over the past years but has become a prime event in the global tourism calendar of events.
Like we have done in previous years, we want to assure all the delegates who are with us this morning that we will, during this next four days, accord to you top of the drawer treatment that has become synonymous with this province, which is renowned for being a trail blazer in coming up with innovative tourism offerings.
But more importantly, we urge you to, during your stay in this province, not only sample the myriad of tourism products that our province has to offer but also to experience the warmth and the hospitality of our people.
Programme director, this year's indaba edition comes at an exciting time in the life of our nation. It comes at a time when the soccer fever is gripping the whole of our country, with a few days left before our country hosts the biggest sporting spectacle on earth, the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup.
As part of preparing to roll out the red carpet to all the people who will descend on this province, we have not only improved our tourist offerings, but have built state of the art facilities which will serve as a proud reminder of this moment in history even long after the soccer spectacle has ended.
One of these facilities is the imposing Moses Mabhida stadium which has become one of the most recognisable features of our city, as it towers majestically below the sky line of Durban.
Programme director, we meet today with 33 days left before South Africa hosts one of the biggest sporting spectacles on earth, the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup. As you might have noticed, excitement is already in the air and our country and our people are readying themselves to welcome the world to our country.
During this sporting extravaganza, our province will be home to five qualifying nations which have selected our province as their base camp. These are Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Paraguay, Nigeria and Greece. Since this is the African world cup, we consciously went out to invite African teams to base in our province.
We expect our sisters and brothers from African countries to descend on our shores, following in the footsteps of home grown African icons like King Shaka, Inkosi Albert Luthuli, Mkabayi kaJama, King Cetshwayo and Dr John Langalibalele Dube to name but a few. This is a truly African province with inimitable heritage.
As we gather this morning, we want to send an unequivocal message to the world that KwaZulu-Natal and indeed the whole of our country is ready to deliver to the whole global community the most spectacular edition of the FIFA Soccer World Cup in history. We hope that many of you gathered here this morning will come back and be part of history when the games start.
But more importantly, we want to say that our province is more than ready to offer top of the drawer treatment to our visitors. We are ready to give the most memorable tourism experience to all the fans who will visit our province.
The reality, programme director, is that from a tourism point of view, the success of the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup will be measured by how many people who will visit the country will make repeat visits and mobilise others, by word of mouth, in their native countries to visit our province and indeed South Africa.
Our ultimate objective, programme director, is to ensure that this 2010 FIFA World Cup leaves the most indelible imprint in the annals of our province's tourism history. While service excellence has always remained the hallmark of our tourism offerings, this time we have pushed the boundary of quality service.
In this regard, we are mobilising thousands of our people who are part of workers in tourism establishments who interface with tourists to pull out all the stops in ensuring that our tourists have unforgettable experiences.
Known as The Tourist Buddies, these are cadres of men and women who are working in such tourism establishments as hotels, garages, fast food outlets, etc. who are being trained to offer the most exceptional service to our tourists visiting the province.
This programme enhances customer service of all participating institutions thereby ensuring client loyalty for participating institutions. The 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup will provide a perfect platform for the tourist buddies to show what they are made of.
Programme director, this year's indaba also coincides with the single biggest development in the history of the people of this province. We have no doubt that many of you would have landed at the spanking new King Shaka International Airport when you arrived this week.
In a matter of hours, this state of the art facility will be opened our President, His Excellency President Jacob Zuma. This facility has been operational for seven days and is one of the latest additions to our collection of landmark facilities which communicate a single message: that KwaZulu-Natal wants to claim a sizeable slice of the global tourism market.
This facility will position the province as Africa's leading tourism destination, nationally and internationally and will remove barriers that may have existed previously. We have already begun implementing an aggressive strategy to woo international airlines to fly directly from overseas destinations into King Shaka International Airport.
We must say that the appetite shown by international carriers is good and we believe that it is in the interest of all those airlines who want to grow to utilise this facility because our province is a gateway to the rest of the continent and other international destinations.
Programme director, while we believe that it is only natural for provinces to compete for their fair slice of the tourism cake, such competition must not be to the detriment of other provinces. In the fast-disappearing art of wooing a partner, it is taboo to denigrate your competitor in order to win the heart of your object of desire.
This is a principle we live by and those of our colleagues who have shared international platforms with us can attest to the fact that we sell our province, our country and our continent. As the nine provinces that make up the Republic of South Africa, we are partners first before we are competitors.
As we work to woo tourists to visit our respective provinces, we must always be mindful of the fact that ultimately it is the people of South Africa who must benefit, irrespective of where they may reside. We cannot denigrate our sister provinces in order to advance our own interests.
In this regard, collaboration among provinces is the way to go. For example, our province shares boundaries with Mpumalanga, Free State and the Eastern Cape. Therefore, it is my responsibility as the MEC in KwaZulu-Natal to inform an international tourist about the wonders of our neighbouring provinces. The same goes for neighbouring countries, initially, and the rest of the countries of our continent going forward.
It is for this reason, as the province of KwaZulu-Natal, that we will this year launch an aggressive strategy to visit other neighbouring provinces to embark on tourism road shows to promote our province as the destination of choice. We expect other provinces to do the same. Healthy competition, among provinces, as we have stated, is something we all have a duty to encourage. Tourism is one sector where all of us can use our competitive advantage and all win.
Programme director, one of the biggest competitive edges of our province is its friendly weather. Unlike other parts of our country, the province of KwaZulu-Natal boasts a warm, sub tropical maritime climate with an average summer temperature of 17 to 28 degrees Celsius and an average winter temperature of 11 to 25 degrees Celsius. The sea temperature averages 21 degrees throughout the year inviting all our visitors to step into our beautiful ocean at any moment.
Precisely, because of the financial pinch that has been felt all over the world we appreciate that, tourists want maximum returns for their investment. Beach tourism is one of the few tourism sectors that are not prohibitively expensive.
Recently, together with our entity, the Natal Sharks Board, which is responsible for beach safety, and possesses world class technology to protect bathers from shark attacks, we launched a programme where we doubled our efforts to ensure bather safety, particularly around the world cup.
Our beaches have not had a fatal shark attack for the past 50 years because of our technology. Therefore, we have tourism offerings to suit all pockets and desires.
As the 2010 FIFA World Cup looms large on the horizon, we have no qualms about the fact that the spectacle will be played in winter. Our host city, Durban is within two hours of most of the province’s tourism attractions.
As all of us know, a game takes about 90 minutes. We have no doubt that in between the games tourists will spend their time exploring and experiencing the offerings of our province. These include our pristine beaches, our majestic Drakensberg Mountain, the battlefields route, exhilarating game drive experiences, magnificent aquamarine adventures and enthralling history and culture of our province. But more importantly our province is home to the people with a big heart, the Zulu people.
As the province of KwaZulu-Natal we have doubled our efforts to ensure that this province becomes one of the tourism hot spots. Although our province remains the net attractor of domestic tourism, we cannot afford to rest on our laurels. We want to increase our domestic tourism numbers while also attracting more in bound tourists.
The new King Shaka International Airport provides a firm basis for us to achieve this goal. Not only will this airport put us on the global tourism map, but it signals our unyielding intention to ensure that our province remains a destination of choice.
Our immediate and most pressing goal is to ensure that we help our country and our province to surpass the 10 million mark of tourists who visited our country last year. We say this not only because we are driven by an insatiable ambition to success, but also because we have the facilities and the capacity to become one of the most sought after tourism draw cards in the country and indeed globally.
Programme director, it is a known fact that the world is recovering from the ravaging impact of the recession. The tourism sector, which is one of the fastest growing industries in the world, was not immune from the harsh winds of the global recession.
As the world economy begins to recover slowly, we invite you to invest in our tourism sector which, we think, its potential has still to be realised. However, as government we are committed to ensure that we create a conducive environment for investment in tourism to yield favourable returns. As with all other great investments, it is those who enter the market early who enjoy the best returns. In this regard, we can only say the early bird catches the fattest worm.
However, as government, we have a responsibility to ensure that in growing our economy, we create an economy that yields opportunities for all. In this regard, we regard our policy of Broad based black economic empowerment as a critical instrument to achieve this objective.
This policy, we believe, is not an anti-thesis for growth but, on the contrary, it is a catalyst for economic prosperity and a foundation of creating shared growth which is a prerequisite for social and political stability. We will continue to pursue this policy and all other transformative policies in order to ensure that tourism benefits all of our people.
Programme director, we have no doubt that this year’s instalment of indaba will live up to its billing and that this trade show will continue to grow and that Durban will always be part of its DNA. However, we strongly believe that it is our collective responsibility to build Indaba to become a prestigious trade show for Africa and the Diaspora.
As the province of KwaZulu-Natal, we have a vision to accomplish not only this ideal but to ensure that indaba is one of the brightest stars in the galaxy of other trade shows. In order to do this, we believe that it is critical that we should resolve the issue of the permanent status of Indaba.
As we celebrate 31 years of this trade show, which has become synonymous with Durban, we believe that it is our collective duty to ensure that just like London has its World Travel Market (WTM), and Spain has its Fitur and Germany has its ITB, Indaba should become a permanent feature of Durban.
We believe that we should, working together, position Indaba to be become the mecca of tourism trade on this continent. Our state of the art facilities, coupled with our new airport, puts us in good stead to achieve this goal. But more importantly we want to turn Indaba into a tourism trade where latest tourism products are offered.
One of the growing markets in the tourism sector is the sea cruise segment. As the province we want to grow this market and ensure better utilisation of our competitive advantage which is our coastline. But critically, as a member of the secretariat of the Indian Ocean Association, we want to use our position to mobilise sister provinces and African countries located along the Indian Ocean coast line, from Cape to Tanzania, to ensure that we leverage the advantages offered by this tourism market.
In conclusion programme director; we want to thank all the captains of the tourism sector who have converged with us this morning on this edition of indaba. We wish to invite you to visit our stand where we have lined up a number of activities during the course of this trade show. We wish all of you a pleasant stay in our city and our province. We have no doubt that many of you will find time to experience the tourism offers that our province boast and that in June you will be here to make history and also to celebrate Africa's humanity with us.
I thank you.
Issued by: Department of Economic Development and Tourism, KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Government
8 May 2010
Source: Department of Economic Development and Tourism, KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Government (http://www.kznded.gov.za/)
