How should we market NDE to visitors?

Seeing this is the month of Talana Live, tourism awareness and even Voetspore (they passed through last month to be exact), it is time to really bring visitors back to our patch.

Now that the Department of Home Affairs has relaxed travel regulations, meaning parents travelling with underage children do not have to have the ‘punishment’ of getting them unabridged birth certificates, international tourists may start returning to our beloved battlefields. That’s another bow we can add to our tourism bouquet.

Not all visitors are keen on battlefields graves, so how about a modern touch? For instance, we could market this as the place where you work but you must sometimes expect to receive no money. That is a whole new battlefield.

Or where you are encouraged to invest thousands of Rands into schemes that promptly close shop a week after, even though one of them was in the most legitimate part of town – across the road from the police station. Or the place where car guards now outnumber the shoppers. After all, most happily drive to Newcastle to shop and then unhappily complain about the cost of petrol.

Or the place where even the Voetsporespan balked at the chance to drive on the roads in the industrial area – such is the nature of our potholes. Or the town where the most photographed object in the central business district were the 20-cent parking meters. Tourists are left stunned that these mechanical meters are still operational and motorists still put money in them…

We have pretty fast drivers around here. Perhaps some of the visitors would like to spend a day pitting their driving skills against one of dragsters. Odds are that any hired car has the ability to out do one of those suped-up jobbies. Hired cars are like company cars – they tend to go anyway at any speed.

Those who are more community driven – many Europeans go to Nepal to ‘find themselves’ – would perhaps care to join Mr Happiness, Eugene Mahlaba in clearing away some of the litter that has sadly started to dominate our town. This would be very therapeutic for the visitors and we could even make a local industry out of manufacturing custom made brooms and even refuse bags, complete with the ‘I visited Dundee’ logo.

What else makes us unique? We did a quick survey and here are some of the answers:

The sidewalks are for hawkers, the streets are for pedestrians; the car wash comes to you; cows, goats and donkeys roam the streets; a car signaling to go left suddenly turns right almost wiping you out; the cars on Victoria Street are double parked and some double parked again and you’re stuck in a parking until they decide to come out from where ever they are; people
hoot at you because everybody is known, which makes it a warm relaxing place; your neighbour knows more about yourself than you do; caring people ask about your family when they see you in Spar because they genuinely care; you see Indumeni and Mpati in all their splendour.

From our beautiful surroundings, the stunning thorn trees and vast landscapes, the beautiful pine trees with their unique aromas and breathtaking sunsets. Dundee has it all.

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