Following her recent visit to the Northern Cape where she joined the Minister of Tourism, Derek Hanekom, the Northern Cape provincial government and the whole country in celebrating World Tourism Day (27 September 2014) activities which were held under theme “Tourism Transforming Lives, North West MEC for Tourism, Desbo Mohono says her department was able to exchange best practices and benchmark other trends within the Tourism sector across the country.
MEC Mohono said that it is important that she engages with other relevant national stakeholders, the Minister and Tourism MECs from other provinces so as to better place her newly formed department and province as set against other provincial departments in the map.
“This tour to the Northern Cape was not only to celebrate world Tourism Day, we were there to also benchmark, network and exchange best practices. I was there to ensure that I sell Bokone Bophirima as a tourism product to the market which was available there” she said.
“The North West province has quality world class tourism products which we as the custodians need to represent, package and sell well to the relevant markets. Hence we are in this province to see how we can learn from them and share best practices”, she said.
MEC Mohono also added that since the North West and Northern Cape are bordering each other the prospects of creating partnerships which will benefit both provinces in growing the economy.
“We can engage each other on a regular to develop strategies in working together to grow the tourism economy. Both our provinces are mainly rural and we both have astonishing indigenous Tourism products. Our partnership would go a long away and it will definitely yield positive results which will transform the lives of ordinary South Africans from both provinces”, she added.
World Tourism Day is an annual event meant to foster awareness among the international community about the importance of tourism and its social, cultural, political and economic value. This year’s theme was focusing on the ability of tourism to empower people and provide them with skills to achieve change in their local communities.
