MyPE

Community Business Directory, Event Listings, News and Views from Gqeberha, Nelson Mandela Bay

White Flag Protest Heads for Hobie Beach

By

Dear Editor

One Voice – a local group of established member-based tourism bodies, including DMB, FEDHASA, SATSA , PEMBBA, SAACI, SACIA, SATAVITO, the Historical Society PE, TGAMB invites you to our Peaceful White Flag Demonstration.

The group will be handing over a memorandum regarding the ongoing safety incidents that are driving our tourism visitors away from Nelson Mandela Bay. Social media posts and videos are damaging our reputation and this can be seen in both our sluggish recovery from COVID and further significant year-on-year reductions in our visitor numbers. We are viewed by many as an unsafe destination and the ongoing incidents in our tourism hotspots will accelerate our downward spiral.

The tourism industry’s appeal is to take tourism, as the second largest employer in the Metro seriously. It is a non-negotiable from every person in tourism and its supply lines that this crisis is escalated urgently to the top priority in the Metro for safety in the tourism hotspots of the Metro. The Metro needs to drive a strategy where an extraordinary and unconditional series of actions are implemented by the end of October and then continue for the full 12 months of each year. Tourism business has demonstrated its willingness to work with government partners and be part of both the planning and implementation.

The One Voice message in this Memorandum is simple. Tens of thousands of jobs have been lost and more will follow if drastic action is not taken. Our communities need to keep their jobs and others need employment. The most influential, non negotiable building block to achieve a positive change in the perceptions of our potential visitors and to have them consider to holiday in the Metro, is to treat the current visitor safety situation as a State of Action priority and dramatically improve visitor safety in our tourism areas.

The demonstration will take place on the grass area opposite Beach Hotel from 11:00 – 12:00 on Friday 4 October 2024.

The Demonstration has been approved by the Municipality.

DETAILS:

  • Date: Friday 4 October 2024
  • Time: 11h00 to 12h00
  • Place: Hobie Beach Grassed Area
  • What to Bring: A WHITE FLAG and a placard – don’t NOT attend if you cannot source any of these.
The following two tabs change content below.

Port Elizabethan

This author is a 'catch-all' for occasional articles and letters written to MyPE. The Author of each article can be found in the signature at the bottom of each individual article.