Perspective: SA’s Cinderella province turns on the charm

National Geographic Traveller magazine recently told its readers that KZN was a must-see destination for 2019. The world-renowned mag ranked us as number 13 in its 2019 “Cool List”.

This is pretty cool, even if Zimbabwe ranked higher than us (losing a dictator president will do that for a country).

Anyway at least Table Mountain did not feature (gag).

Sorry, but you would think it was our only landmark! UCT was my alma mater so I am actually rather fond of the table in the clouds but South Africa does not begin and end around that mountain.

There is magic to be discovered far off the beaten track.

KZN often appears to be the forgotten ‘ugly’ sister of the provinces, when actually we are Cinderella, a little shabby around the edges, just waiting for the Prince of International Perception to look our way and we will transform into every tourist’s dream holiday. KZN is the full package: mountains, a warm ocean, spectacular game parks and a rich history all ready to explore.

National Geographic makes special note of the British Airways recently launched direct flights from Heathrow to Durban and calls us a “safari hot spot”. Oh yeah baby, that’s us!

Anyway, someone must be doing something right because heck, we just got noticed.

Cheryl Peters of Enterprise Ilembe is one of those people working hard to change perceptions and bring the tourist pounds to our sandy shores.

Chatting to her over lunch the other day she mentioned her recent trip to London for the World Travel Market, where she along with others from KZN tourism bodies went to promote us to 51,000 travel agents, tour operators, journalists and tourism ministers.

Cheryl said the response was great, although it was difficult to measure in Rands. One challenge she noted was the lack of three- to four-star Club Med-style hotels in KZN as tour groups look specifically to book these. She hinted though that there may be one in the pipeline, but that story will have to wait for another day.

Cheryl believes our continued presence at these type of events is key to ensuring the tourists keep coming.

That said, when tourists arrive you have but once chance to impress them. When we leave our rubbish on the side of the road or drink too much at the beach (or when we fail to stop those who do) we are driving tourists and their money away (and by extension, jobs).

It won’t matter what the likes of Cheryl say if our visitors post negative reviews on Facebook, TripAdvisor and their own blogs. The Internet never forgets and tourists are as fickle as the wind.

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Electrogasm – The new South African word describing the feeling you get when your house suddenly comes back to life after load shedding.

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