Creating sustainable tourism through collaborations and partnerships with tourism private sector, communities and government will secure the future of tourism in Nelson Mandela Bay.
That was the core message of the Mayoral Committee Member for Economic Development, Tourism and Agriculture, Shuling Lindor when she officially launched this year’s Tourism Month at Nyosi Wildlife Reserve on Monday, 4 September 2023.
Councillor Lindor said that Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality understands that the tourism industry cannot survive on it’s own.
This year’s Tourism Month theme is, ‘Tourism and Green Investment’. The Tourism Month launch venue that is, Nyosi Wildlife Reserve is one of the tourism establishments that 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 situate at about 25 km from the centre between the far western farm areas and Kwanobuhle.
MMC Lindor said she was encouraged that already in Nelson Mandela Bay there are tourism establishments that have made strides in both 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 MMC Lindor.
Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality Tourism Director Mpho Pebane said: ‘We will be intensifying our efforts this month as we are building towards our the 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’.
Pebane said as the Metro they understand that tourism might be government led, but it is private sector driven with the community the enabler within the value chain.
‘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,’ he said.
Speaking at the launch, Nyosi Wildlife Reserve Chief Operating Officer Cameron Doyle said 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. In as much as we have worked with the communities of Kwanobuhle on a number of 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 wild life and the township culture all in one drive,’ said Cameron.
Cameron said quite a number of young people from Kwanobuhle have been trained on a number of tourism fields like game drive, hospitality and environmental sustainability. Part of those that have gone through these training programmes have 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.
NMB Communications
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