Domestic travel to Limpopo drops

A recent report released by South African Tourism shows Limpopo as the second most popular destination for domestic travel, with a 24% share in provincial trips during the first quarter of 2016.
This puts the province behind Gauteng, which claimed 25% and ahead of KwaZulu-Natal that has a 17% share in provincial trips.
In August last year the province was leading the pack in domestic travel as per statistics released by international and domestic tourism for the year 2014 as compared to 2013.
In 2014, the province received a total of 1,6 million international arrivals which accounts for a growth of 15,3% as compared to 1,47 million arrivals in 2013. Research goes further to show that 68% of these international tourists who visited the province, did so for holiday purposes and were involved in wildlife activities.
Limpopo Tourism Agency (LTA) Spokesperson Mike Tauatsoala attributed the drop to different unique propositions provinces have. “Provinces complement one another. For example KwaZulu- Natal has a beach and we don’t have but we have other tourism attractions that they don’t have. However, we are working hard to retain position one,” he said.
According to Tauatsoala the Kruger National Park remains Limpopo’s biggest attraction followed by provincial parks, private game reserves and flea or craft markets.
“Limpopo was the biggest beneficiary of domestic trips in 2014 receiving 7,4 million domestic trips, a growth of approximately 32% and beating all nine provinces in the country. This was an improvement from 5,6 million trips in 2013 at a growth of 20%, which accounts for an increase of 12% in 2014,” Tauatsoala said.

Story: Herbert Rachuene
>>herbert@mailbox.co.za