Creating sustainable tourism through collaborations and partnerships with the tourism private sector, communities, and government will secure the future of tourism in Nelson Mandela Bay.
That was the core message of Mayoral Committee Member for Economic Development, Tourism and Agriculture, Shuling Lindoor, when she officially launched this year’s Tourism Month at Nyosi Wildlife Reserve on Monday, September 4.
Councillor Lindoor said that Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality understands that the tourism industry cannot survive on its own.
This year’s Tourism Month theme is, “Tourism and Green Investment”. The Tourism Month launch venue, Nyosi Wildlife Reserve, is one of the tourism establishments the metro has partnered with due to its organic reflection of this year’s theme.
The Nyosi Wildlife Reserve is a peri-urban nature reserve, situated around 25km from the metro’s centre, between the far western farm areas and KwaNobuhle.
MMC Lindoor said that she was encouraged that already in Nelson Mandela Bay there are tourism establishments that have made strides in conserving the environment, community involvement, and beneficiation and development of the tourism sector.
“As the city we have postured our Tourism Month, Summer Season, and beyond, towards this theme, for the sustainability of the industry and a meaningful contribution to the economy. Let’s all partner to work together, to involve, educate, develop and integrate SMMEs, which form part of the informal tourism industry, into the mainstream economy to improve our product offering,” said Lindoor.
“We will be intensifying our efforts this month, as we are building towards our summer season. We will be working to see more private tourism, community and government collaborations, in both developing tourism products as well as marketing them to both continental and international markets,” said Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality Tourism director, Mpho Pebane.
“As we embark on these efforts, we have roped in our metro departments, waste management and environmental management, to bring in the perspective of investment Greening within our tourism.”
Speaking at the launch, Nyosi Wildlife Reserve chief operating officer, Cameron Doyle, said that the passion of the metro towards peri-urban-based eco-tourism that integrates with communities was encouraging.
“Today this launch coincides with our announcement of our plans to open an access point into the reserve from KwaNobuhle. Since we have worked with the communities of KwaNobuhle on some CSI projects, we are now starting to work on plans to work with them to improve and add on the product offering to tourists. We are already imagining a situation where our international tourists will experience both the wildlife and the township culture all in one drive,” said Doyle.
Doyle said that quite some young people from KwaNobuhle have been trained in some tourism fields, like game drive, hospitality, and environmental sustainability. Part of the group that has gone through these training programmes has been employed as permanent employees of the reserve, while some have turned out to be service providers. As part of the initiatives by Nyosi Wildlife Reserve to encourage sustainable investments, they have donated more than 600 indigenous trees to different schools in KwaNobuhle.
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