Gauteng Tourism Authority (GTA) the official destination marketing agency for the Gauteng City Region will on the 2nd – 5th May 2022 lead the golden province’s destination marketing efforts at the Africa Travel Indaba in Durban following two-year pause due to Covid-19 pandemic.
With the country striving to move into full economic recovery mode and Gauteng province which account to just over 30% of South Africa’s GDP and just under 8% of Africa’s GDP is set to play a crucial role in leading this much needed recovery. Tourism is at the heart of this recovery with the African continent now positioned as the lucrative frontier for an integrated regional tourism growth and development.
“At Gauteng Tourism, we are deliberate in realigning our sector recovery plans to focus on the regional and domestic markets first before we venture into the overseas markets. Africa Travel Indaba presents us with an opportunity to mobilize the continent’s key travel trade partners, regional tourism marketing agencies, media and over 300 buyers scheduled to attend this 2 premiere event behind the Growing Gauteng Together vision 2030”, explained GTA CEO Sthembiso Sthe Dlamini.
Part of what the GTA will be promoting aggressively at the 2022 Africa Travel Indaba will be the #SportingGP prowess and associated development of travel packages for both domestic, regional, and international markets. These are sports tourism packages and events of which we are seeking dedicated partners ranging from curated experiences and tours for the likes of Soweto Derby between Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs herald as one of the top 10 biggest derbies in the world, rugby derby weekend package between the Blue Bulls and Lions, international rugby and cricket test matches involving some of our key source markets countries, the iconic Soweto marathon, the 94.7 Ride Joburg cycling challenge and a mirage of world-class Sunshine and DPtour golf tournaments amongst the many sporting GP events we have on offer.
Gauteng and the city of Tshwane will play host to the 2023 World Rowing Masters Regatta, another quality global event we won the rights to host and through our #SportingGP showcase at Indaba, we want to shine a spotlight on this great achievement in our quest to use sporting events to drive tourism recovery, save existing sector jobs and catalyze new once. “We want to formalize our sports tourism routes in Gauteng and leverage our quality sporting infrastructure, skilled personnel, passionate fans and world-class multi-media broadcasting capabilities as part of our new tourism marketing and development strategy”, emphasized Dlamini.
Gauteng is the home to three of the ten FIFA 2010 World Cup stadiums and pride itself with similar sporting infrastructure in our main townships like Lucas Moripe, Makhulong, Vosloorus, Orlando, Dobsonville and George Thabe. We house the mecca of SA cricket in the form of the Wanderers stadiums in Joburg and Supersport Park in Centurion. The best motor sporting circuits are also located in this golden province positioning Gauteng as the preferred destination for any regional or global motorsport events. All these together with the decent performance of our sporting teams on continental tournaments like CAF amplifies the need for formal sports tourism routes to house and share this rich history, prowess and certainly serve as a new frontier of tourism growth and development with the expected new jobs out of these efforts.
Catch #VisitGauteng team at Africa Travel Indaba at the DC area, stand DC1 J20 bright and ready with their favourite Gauteng sporting teams shirts as we journey together towards tourism recovery.
