Durban on a tourism success wave MyZA

INLSA

The Durban tourism sector outperformed other major SA cities over the December holidays for a second straight year. Now Durban Tourism is set to take the city to another level, with the municipality approving R20 million in funding for an international marketing campaign.

Speaking at the official opening of Durban Tourism’s trendy new headquarters in Florida Road on Friday, CEO Phillip Sithole said following one of its best tourism seasons ever, the city was about to embark on an ambitious marketing partnership.

“We have been negotiating with Cape Town Tourism and Joburg Tourism as part of a three-cities agreement to work together and pool our resources to market our three cities globally. I am happy that we are about to finalise the (three-year) deal, which involves international TV networks National Geographic and Discovery,” he said.

“Senior management from the networks will be coming to Durban next week from London to do a presentation to Durban Tourism and tourism industry stakeholders in our city. Durban has turned the corner and we want to take the city to another level as a tourism destination.

“We can’t do it alone. We need partnerships to make this happen – partnerships with other cities and with the tourism industry and other important stakeholders. This was absent before and we want to build on this by working with other agencies, including Tourism KZN and Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife. We won’t be competing with them.

“Strong partnerships with the hotel industry, including major players such as Southern Sun and Signature Life, saw Durban Tourism taking our marketing drive to Gauteng and the Free State last year. All this paid off with the excellent December holiday season Durban has just had, aside from the business that came from our hosting of the UN COP17 climate change summit,” he said.

Warren Ozard, regional general manager of the Federated Hospitality Association of SA, welcomed Durban Tourism’s move to Florida Road and its will to work with the industry.

He said the COP17 talks had resulted in 100 percent hotel occupancies in the city. “For the rest of the season, Durban averaged 80 percent hotel occupancies and that was the best in South Africa. In fact, the first two weeks of January were also busy.”

However, Ozard said the empty beach restaurant nodes on Durban’s upgraded promenade needed to be filled.

Peter Rose of uMhlanga Tourism said: “uMhlanga’s 15 hotels, 400 self-catering establishments and 200 BBs virtually had full signs up for the whole of December. We had a spectacular festive tourism season. Right from the start of COP17 until just a week ago, we were very busy.”

CEO of uShaka Marine World Shaun Thompson said the theme park had experienced one of its best December seasons.

“We were very busy and the vibe was amazing. uShaka was 15 percent up on 2010 visitor figures. We had over 30 0000 paid visitors to uShaka’s various facilities over the December period,” he said.

Cristo Swart of Durban’s Metro Police said according to their records, more than 2.1 million people descended on the beachfront during December.

“This was an increase on the previous year and we were particularly busy on public holidays. Our staff did a great job. There was also not a single drowning on the beachfront in December,” he said.

Swart said beach staff had distributed 90 000 safety armbands to children and by the end of the season, all separated children had been reunited with their parents.

New city manager Sibusiso Sithole said the choice of Durban Tourism’s new office location was strategic, with Florida Road being one of the city’s main restaurant, leisure and tourism hubs.

“As the new city manager I want to assure you that I am a friend of the tourism industry,” he said at the opening.

“I want to take Durban to a new level and on a new wave of tourism development… .” He said it was essential to build strong partnerships.