Queen Elizabeth visits Nelson Mandela Bay for the fourth time

The MS Queen Elizabeth returned to the Port of PE for the fourth time today. With true Nelson Mandela Bay (NMB) hospitality, guests on board were welcomed by the sweet sounds of traditional singing. She berthed at Berth 101 in the port at 06:00 this morning.

Transnet National Ports Authority’s (TNPA) Port of PE, once again welcomed Her Royal Highness of the Cunard line to the Bay. She arrived with 1 896 passengers, who were greeted with traditional song and dance in the true spirit of the Friendly City.

Being part of Queen Elizabeth’s voyage is specifically important to NMB. She is one of the most prestigious cruise liners and this time around, she called at only two ports in South African – the Port of Cape Town and the Port of PE, before sailing off to Reunion in Mozambique on Friday evening. This in itself reiterates the appealing nature of our city to international visitors.

The increase of cruise liner tourism to NMB is particularly exciting. As with the growth in the number of vessel calls to Port of PE, we start to achieve higher economic growth and position NMB as a destination of choice for cruise liner tourism. Queen Elizabeth’s visit alone has resulted in forty pre-booked tours ranging from explorations to the Sunday’s River valley, Addo Elephant National Park, Kwantu Game Reserve, the PE Highlights tour, township tours and many others that will ensure our visitors are able to enjoy every inch of our city and culture.

The fruits of our NMB Cruise Line strategy are starting to bear, with the key intentions of driving demand, working better together, supporting what we have as a city as well as increasing recognition of the value of our tourism. This is further supported by the increase of cruise line visits from 18 in 2016/17 to 39 visits in this current season ending in April 2020. As part of the planned calls in this seasons, the NMB and the Port of PE looks forward to welcoming another Cunard luxury line, Queen Mary 2 in March 2020.