How does Nelson Mandela Bay compete with the more popular tourism destinations in South Africa, like Cape Town or KwaZulu-Natal, where there are similar attractions on offer?
Our aim is not to compete with other destinations, but to showcase the uniqueness of Nelson Mandela Bay. We feel that we complement everything else that there is to offer around the country. When we are marketing our destination, it's all about highlighting the unique things, things that are different to this destination as opposed to other areas. One of the things that we are highlighting is ocean safaris. Recently the city has been declared the bottlenose dolphin capital of the world. There are over 29,000 bottlenose dolphins along Algoa Bay, and the beauty of these ocean safaris is that not only do you get to see dolphins at play when you go out, but the abundance of the marine life that's also out there. For instance, there are three islands along the Algoa Bay, one of the islands is home to one of the largest breeding colonies of the African penguin in their natural habitat.
It is its people - we've got wonderful people living here; it's no wonder we're often referred to as the friendly city. We have this welcoming spirit as locals, making visitors feel more at ease in getting around.
We look at trends that are happening globally. If you are in the tourism space, you always need to remain relevant. We understand that our consumers - visitors and travellers out there - are really spoilt for choice, so competition is very tough. So it's all about understanding their needs and understanding trends. If trends dictate that people are more on their smartphones - it's now all about going digital, and making information more accessible for them - we have to move with the times.
It is a focus for us, of our local municipality, to grow tourism in Nelson Mandela Bay. In this area, our strong industry currently is automotive, and there is a big sense of wanting to diversify, and not only depend on the one sector to grow the economy of the area. Tourism comes up second, and it has huge potential to surpass even the automotive industry. The natural assets that we have, and the natural heritage that the city has, puts us in a position that enables us to really grow this area and make it a sustainable industry.
Our municipality has implemented some water restrictions, however we don't think that the tourism industry is going to be severely affected by the drought. Back in the day, from a tourism point of view, we introduced measures for businesses to start implementing responsible and sustainable tourism. We've always understood that water is a scarce resource. Together with the national department of tourism there has been a drive to encourage tourism businesses to do retrofitting to ensure the sustainable use of resources. We are quite confident that our tourism products have implemented those measures, and they're quite comfortable that visitors will still have access to water, but it will be in a sparing way.
