Programme Director;
Your Excellency, the Deputy High Commission Debora Balatseng;
Esteemed members from the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Provincial Legislature;
The Chairperson of the Tourism KZN board, Mr Sadha Naidoo;
Tourism KZN Board Member, Mr Thami Mzileni;
The Vice President for Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) Mr Praveen Chugh;
Executive Members of TAFI present here tonight;
Esteemed Representatives from SATSA;
Ladies and gentlemen;
All observed.
We wish to start by thanking all of you for gracing this dinner where we are marking the end of what has been a highly successful visit to India.
As we bid farewell to our hosts tonight we do so with more than a sense of contentment and great achievement, but we will be taking with us memories that we have no doubt that we will cherish for the rest of our lives.
But, more importantly, the message that we will be taking home with us to the people of our province and the Premier of our Province Dr ZL Mkhize is the firm commitment from TAFI that they will not only host their convention in Durban in February next year but that we will work together to boost both inbound and outbound tourism between our countries.
On behalf of the people of KwaZulu-Natal and this delegation, allow me to express our collective heartfelt gratitude to our hosts from India, in particularly our friends from TAFI, who have showered us with warmth and made us feel welcome in this incredible country.
At this juncture, allow me Programme Director, to recognise another delegation from the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Legislature, which is led by the Honourable Member of Parliament Mrs LL Zwane.
The fact that we have two delegations from the province of KwaZulu-Natal visiting India at the same time speaks volumes about the significance that our province has attached to India as the next frontier of growth and development.
Programme Director, this being the last farewell dinner, after the whirlwind tour of India which has taken us to Mumbai and the beautiful city of New Delhi where we were both captivated and enchanted, like millions of other tourists, by the majestic icon that is the Taj Mahal, tonight is not a night for long speeches.
However, it would be remiss of us if we do not take you through the journey of how we got here. As fate would have it, this relationship started when Southern Africa Tourism Association (SATSA) formed a co-operation agreement with TAFI, after which our entity Tourism KwaZulu-Natal started exploring the possibilities of hosting the TAFI convention.
In 2010 we had our first engagement with TAFI which was followed by a formal bid submission. The bid was then accepted and in 2011 there was a formal site evaluation in Durban by TAFI. As the province of KwaZulu-Natal, we were honoured when we received the news that after a meeting by the TAFI executive our province had been awarded the rights to host the TAFI convention.
As part of the process of increasing awareness, we did an activation in Macau in November 2011 where we hosted a KZN night, to give TAFI members a foretaste of the splendour and the hospitality that our province is renowned for. In May, this year, we hosted members of the TAFI executive in Durban as part of the Tourism Indaba, where we practically showcased our province’s capabilities when it comes to hosting major events.
This visit which, ends tonight, is therefore a culmination of a long journey which we have walked together, hand in hand, with our counterparts from TAFI, understanding that the benefits that will accrue out of this partnership will be shared by all of us. What makes us all the more excited about the outcome of this visit is that even though there has been a change of leadership in the TAFI executive, the commitment to host the convention and to work together going into the future remains unshakable.
We want to assure you once again that come February next year, we will, like we have always done in past, reciprocate your hospitality and ensure that your visit to KwaZulu-Natal is as memorable as ours here.
Once again, thank you very much for hosting us. We also want to thank the office of the High Commissioner and all the staff for ensuring that all the logistical issues were taken care of. We have no doubt that the TAFI convention will be the most successful ever in the history of this illustrious organisation. See you in Durban next year!
I thank you.
