Director of Proceedings
The Mayor of Sisonke Municipality, Councillor J.P Khoza
The Mayor of KwaSani Municipality; Councillor N.B Banda
The Chairperson of the Tourism KwaZulu-Natal Board; Ms Tholakele
The Chief Executive Officer of Tourism KwaZulu-Natal, Mr Ndabo Khoza
Honourable guests
Members of the media present
Ladies and gentlemen
First and foremost, please allow us, one behalf of the government of KwaZulu-Natal and the people of our province, to add our voice to the millions of best wishes directed at one of our province’s gems – Ladysmith Black Mambazo – for achieving fifty years as an internationally-acclaimed accapella group whose history is interwoven with our own history as a nation.
Indeed, the story of South Africa and her music would be incomplete if it did not include Ladysmith Black Mambazo, the undisputed ambassadors not of only South African music but our country as a whole.
Ladies and gentlemen, an ambassador is described as “the highest ranking diplomat who represents a nation and is usually accredited to a foreign sovereign or government, or to an international organisation”. He or she is the personification of our country wherever he or she is posted. As we all know, not everyone can be a country’s ambassador. It is only those who are upstanding, patriotic, dedicated and highly regarded who are chosen as ambassadors.
Indeed as a sector, tourism thrives on perception in which that particular destination, country, or region is held in the eyes of the prospective tourists. If there is a negative perception about a destination, country or region, then that area has a steep mountain to climb in terms of tourism. That is why we are blessed that in our province, we have, among others, the inimitable Ladysmith Black Mambazo as our tourism ambassadors.
Indeed, we are the envy of other regions in the world for no one can boast this feat. We are grateful to the Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Professor Joseph Shabalala for continuing to serve our country even as we attempt to establish ourselves as the tourist destination of choice in the world.
Ladies and gentlemen, KwaZulu-Natal is correctly-packaged as the country’s tourism jewel. It is a known fact that this province is endowed with a combination of unique natural and cultural wonders that have become selling points to both domestic and foreign tourists seeking a wide choice of life experiences. The majestic Drakensberg-Ukhahlamba Mountains hanging above this beautiful Sisonke District are a revelation of what this province could offer – and its adornment of the heritage site status could only elevate this region to the highest summit of the tourism industry.
With poverty and underdevelopment still ravaging our rural and peri-urban communities, we are all called upon to exploit all avenues that make this province exceptional to the rest of the country and the world. This includes our cultural heritage which is a nicely blended tapestry of African, European and Oriental values and all that could be transformed into unparalleled economic opportunities.
Over the years, this province has been hard at work integrating these ingredients into the province’s economic strategy that promotes our diverse sectors to potential investors. Tourism is therefore one of the essential economic sectors that require our attention as we have to make it one of the key contributors to our economy.
As all of you are aware our province has maintained its dominance with regard to domestic tourism and our intention has always to challenge for the global market share. We are aware that our success in doing this partially lied on improving strategic developmental infrastructure such as telecommunication, transportation, accommodation and other related amenities to be on par with acceptable international standards.
One of the barriers for us to effectively harness our long term vision was the absence of a world class aviation facility that would enable visitors and potential investors to fly straight into the province and have easy movement within the province to experience the best tourism products and assess our investment potential. However, the establishment of the new King Shaka International Airport, which was officially unveiled to the world of global tourists on the eve of the 2010 FIFA World Cup has since strengthened our case to declare the province as the must see tourist destination – with all essential facilities for a world class visitor and investor.
With tourism now contributing above 10% of the world Geographical Gross Domestic product (GGDP), KwaZulu-Natal is determined to claim its own share from this figure. Through aggressive tourism marketing efforts we have to capitalise on the recent global perception of the country and continent following the successful hosting of the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup.
But, particularly for stakeholders in the sector, this has to be reciprocated with the development of new tourism products to ensure that potential visitors are spoilt for choice. This move, obviously, has to take into account the obligations relating to the need to accelerate transformation in this sector as part of our commitment to Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment and the content of the tourism charter.
Our people opened their hearts to the world when welcoming fans to demonstrate the spirit of ubuntu which is the hallmark of African hospitality. There is no most appropriate reward to them than creating a suitable space for them to use their cultural and natural heritage to open up business operations including community based tourism ventures to alleviate poverty through job creation.
In partnership with other social partners in the private sector and other spheres of government such as municipalities, we have the capacity to ensure that tourism becomes a real empowerment conduit for impoverished communities in line with the policies of the World Tourism Organisation.
It is because of our understanding that the tourism sector can only grow with the increased participation, particularly at local level, that we will soon be convening a workshop with tourism players, particularly in the local government sector, including local municipality mayors; municipal managers and tourism managers, to synergise our approach to growing the sector and ensuring that, at government level, we speak with one voice. This sector can only thrive against the background of popular support from the public. Certainly in our case it will never attain its potential if it excludes the majority of our people. As we celebrate this year’s Tourism Month, we recommit ourselves to ensuring that we facilitate the growth of the tourism cake for all of our people.
This year’s theme for the Tourism Month centres around biodiversity. This theme highlights the need to preserve our biodiversity, which is tourism’s goose that lays the golden eggs, in order to ensure that we continue to be competitive not only for this generation but as well as the coming generations. It is for this reason that, while we will not tire in our efforts to attract investment into the tourism sector, we will be strict in ensuring that this does not happen to the detriment of our nature and our way of life. Any development has to respect the biodiversity protection imperative that we pursue as a country. However, this does not mean that proposed tourism investment will be held to ransom by anti-progress individuals hiding behind the biodiversity imperative. We need to strike a serious balance and we have faith in the battery of legislation governing new developments and the protection of nature.
As a new democracy with an ambition of playing an active role in the global affairs, tourism is one of the avenues we have to use effectively in pursuance of our national and regional agenda. This implies that we have to ensure that the manner in which we run our tourism business adheres to the values and preconditions as set by the World Tourism Organisation. This includes respect for human rights – featuring provision of quality service to tourism customers whilst also ensuring protection of our own citizens as well as other visitors from unscrupulous tourism traders and as well as criminal elements exploiting tourism to pursue their unlawful acts.
Since tourism is mainly about the movement of people it, unfortunately, is also likely to be infested with individuals intending to commit undesirable actions, including drug and human trafficking.
There is a collective responsibility to ensure that KwaZulu-Natal is a preferred destination because it guarantees the best customer care and protection of visitors whilst providing a wide range of tourism product choices.
Ladies and gentlemen, we decided to launch Tourism Month in a rotational basis to ensure that each region of our province gets a chance to be put on the spot light in terms of revealing its tourism product mix while identifying its unexplored tourism opportunities.
This year was declared Sisonke’s turn. The geographic splendour of the Drakensberg-Ukhahlamba mountains is just one jewel in our tourism crown.
The introduction of the Sisonke Stimela Steam train concept has not only added to our collection of tourism treasures but serves as a thread that stitches together all towns and traditional rural villages of this region to demonstrate the synergic coexistence of all parts of this splendid area. However, the success of steam project in boasting tourism business in this district depends on its integration to the sum total of the tourism marketing of the whole province. Its marketing can’t leave outside the importance of local communities in the value chain as we all know that visitors have different tourism tastes. We have those wishing to gain insight into the history of our people, the wild life riches and general outdoor adventures such as cave studying, hitch-hiking, camping, abseiling, river rafting, canoeing and horse riding. All this has to be part of the marketing bowl.
Collectively with the district and local municipalities we have to accept that Creighton, Underberg, Bulwer, Ixopo, Mzimkhulu, Kokstad and Donny Brook constitute the jigsaw puzzle that makes what we call Sisonke. We therefore have to ensure that these human settlements are systematically blended together to complement one another into an attractive tourism destination. It’s our expectation that the investment that had been made in establishing the steam train project would start yielding good dividends translated into socio-economic advancement of all local communities.
Apart from the incentive of building a greater public awareness around the benefits of the tourism industry, the concept of Tourism attempts to encourage people to travel within their own home provinces and localities. This is critical in ensuring that citizens are fully aware of their province’s beauty to be able to become ambassadors of their own province and country when interfacing with global counterparts. We are therefore grateful to our social partners in the media that have contributed significantly in popularising the concept of Tourism Month since its inaugural year of 2000.
With the euphoria of the 2010 FIFA World Cup still fresh in our memories, we are confident that this year’s festivities will be twinned with the celebrations of the country’s successful hosting of the football spectacle that enthralled the world – a yardstick for the province and the country to continue improving on the quality of tourism products and services to ensure that the world cup experience remains a strong reference. Having proven wrong the prophets of doom that threatened the prospect of hosting the 2010 Fifa World Cup through, our next rung on the step is to double our efforts in selling the province using top draw hospitality demonstrated by our people during the World Cup.
Sisonke literally implies togetherness and as we kick-off the Tourism Month Campaign, let us pool together to ensure that people other than ourselves are informed about what KwaZulu-Natal could offer in terms of tourism products. We have to conscientise our people about the importance of protecting and caring for our visitors who become the source of revenue that creates jobs essential in combating poverty. Together, let us make tourism work for us all…and I now declare the KwaZulu-Natal Tourism Month Campaign officially launched.
I thank you.
Source: http://www.kznded.gov.za
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