The Eastern Cape Parks and Tourism Agency (ECPTA) together with provincial stakeholders such as the Nelson Mandela Museum (Mthatha), Steve Biko Center, Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality, Sarah Baartman District Municipality, Nelson Mandela Bay Tourism, Alfred Nzo District Municipality, OR Tambo District Municipality and Eastern Cape Midlands are collaborating to showcase the best the Eastern Cape has to offer at the 2016 Tourism Indaba trade show to be held in Durban next weekend.
The Eastern Cape Parks and Tourism Agency (ECPTA) together with provincial stakeholders such as the Nelson Mandela Museum (Mthatha), Steve Biko Center, Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality, Sarah Baartman District Municipality, Nelson Mandela Bay Tourism, Alfred Nzo District Municipality, OR Tambo District Municipality and Eastern Cape Midlands are collaborating to showcase the best the Eastern Cape has to offer at the 2016 Tourism Indaba trade show to be held in Durban next weekend.
For the first time, all these various entities are uniting to promote the Eastern Cape’s numerous tourism offerings – from nature based experiences, authentic cultural attractions and new gems like the recently launched positioning of Port Elizabeth as the Dolphin Capital of the World – under one brand – "Adventure Province".
“Promoting the province at various destination marketing platforms, especially where there are international buyers involved, requires a lot of focus and effort," says Eastern Cape Parks and Tourism Agency’s Chief Executive Officer, Vuyani Dayimani.
"When buyers find a product, establishment or experience within a provincial location in South Africa, that becomes a job half done for the exhibitors, and product owners are able to focus on promoting the actual products and other surrounding experiences.”
Exposing provincial tourism products at the Indaba is vitally important, as the show is one of the largest tourism networking platforms on the African calendar. ECPTA and its partners are using the platform as a direct link between trade and tourism businesses.
As part of that effort, it is giving 12 tourism SMMEs (small macro medium enterprises) the chance to attend the event. As Dayimani points out, tourism provides two out of three private sector jobs in the Eastern Cape, but smaller businesses often struggle.
“As a tourism authority wanting to grow the tourism sector of the province, we see great value in SMMEs hence we train and prepare them for trade shows like Indaba so that they are able to proactively engage and sell their establishments and surrounding offerings,” he says.
The 12 SMMEs are from different hospitality and tourism disciplines – including accommodation, tour operators, tourist attractions and tourist activities. In combination they showcase the best the Eastern Cape has to offer.
They are all registered with ECPTA databases and are active Tourism Enterprise Partnerships members. They have also all been trained by ECPTA on business management, financial management, marketing, service excellence, food safety and hospitality and tourism transformation programmes that empower BEE owned businesses.
