The trip to this year’s annual tourism indaba at the iconic Inkosi Shaka International Convention Centre last week was an overwhelming success.
So said both the MEC for economic development and tourism, Vusi Mkhatshwa, and the MTPA board chairperson, Victor Mashego.

Joined by the MTPA’s acting CEO, Mduduzi Vilakazi, the trio presided over the signing of memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with Mozambique, the Kingdom of eSwatini and KwaZulu-Natal.

Before the signing of these MoUs, the province had just concluded strengthening ties with India and the Asian nations, which will see a number of tourists from those countries flocking into the province to marvel and feast on the many wonders on offer here.

“It was indeed a fruitful exercise for us as we were able to revisit and strengthen our relationship with other countries such as Mozambique, eSwatini and India, and the province of KwaZulu-Natal.

“These kinds of relations will enable our people to travel and explore one another’s respective cities with ease,” said Mkhatshwa after signing the MoU with his Mozambican and eSwatinian counterparts.

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“Mpumalanga, Mozambique and the Kingdom of eSwatini have always enjoyed a smooth-sailing relationship.

“The relations were further strengthened since the advent of democracy in the country in 1994, especially in areas of economic cooperation and investment.
“I believe that the future for our tourism sector in Mpumalanga is bright. What we need to do going forward is to get our roads infrastructure on the right track. There is a great need for us to fix the roads leading to many of our tourist attraction destinations and we will work towards achieving that,” committed Mkhatshwa.

The MTPA and various district municipalities in the province brought a number of local tourism establishments and SMMEs within this industry to the indaba, and showcased their crafts and establishments to the rest of the world. Mashego hinted on the need to have more international flights landing in the KMI Airport.

“With all the relationships we are currently working on, we should be able to negotiate for more flights landing directly in our airport. We need to explore the possibility of these flights from India and Asia to land directly here. The other countries’ desire to do business with us must serve as a motivation factor for us to want to do more for this sector,” said Mashego.

He said that the envisaged Indian exchange programme would benefit many young people in the province with necessary skills to help grow the tourism sector.

“Such a programme will enable us to take our children to India to learn about the environment, photography within the tourism sector and film production in nature. We can’t always promote TV programmes that are degrading and a mockery to our people. We need our youngsters to learn from programmes that will promote our tourism sector and portray the country in a good light,” stressed Mashego.