We forget that tourism is a business with many moving parts not under the control of operators, venues and the like…
Most tourism bodies cite a vibrant and well managed municipality as probably the most vital cog in this machine.
When one leg fails then the industry becomes disenchanted and fear and doubt permeate amongst the members.
We have all witnessed how seemingly charming hosts turn from charming to snarling whenever confronted with major challenges from an incompetent municipality struggling to fix roads and infrastructure in a declining environment.
That negativity then extends into the working environment and has a subtle negative influence on all that it touches.
Then the operators descend further into a blame game – blaming every outside influence that they can name for their woes.
Frankly – we have a situation where the Friendly City of Port Elizabeth disappeared to become the ‘Not so Friendly City of Gqeberha’.
We need to get over the fact that Port Elizabeth as a name is gone and we need to look at how we can capitalise on our natural beauty our incredible events and even more incredibly friendly people.
Yes, we have challenges but we need to overcome and embrace those as part of our tourism offering.
In my mind is remembrance of just how dynamic and single minded our tourism offering was – we can get it back, all it takes is for us to promote our little slice of heaven positively and regularly.
My little contribution to that is within what we do successfully – creating spaces for people to feel pride again.
So I created MyGQ – like it’s predecessor MyPE – I am looking to shine a micro light on our city and allow like minded tourism operators to share in the free marketing opportunities that we offer on the platform.
There are four main areas:
- MyGQ Forum – an old school way for tourists to connect with operators, venues, events and accommodation. Get the inside track from a local and not from a faceless machine.
- MyGQ Directory – Accommodation, activities, eateries – all the essentials that tourist look for before travelling.
- MyGQ Travel News – The offering is simple – post your travel and tourism news on MyPR in the TRAVEL Category and MyGQ will republish, with special mention for any news from Gqeberha,
- MyGQ Events – Entertainment, sporting and cultural events in Gqeberha.
The aim of MyGQ events is to maintain a space where Gqeberha based event and venue owners along with promoters and performers can advertise and self submit their events for free.
Look for the third option under ‘Event Tickets’ which is marked as ‘Take users to an external URL’ and place a link to your payment processor or ticketing site there.
Submit events here: https://mygq.co.za/events/submit/
How about a free live concert on Wednesday?
Images:
Links:
Boilerplate and Editor’s Notes.
More Info on Showcasing Gqeberha Tourism here:
X: https://twitter.com/MyPE
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Alan Straton
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