Toti to put its boot in sports tourism plans
Sports events are an important means to market Toti to tourists.
Sapphire Coast Toti Tourism (SCTT) chairman, Jacques van Schalkwyk outlined the strategy plan for SCTT when he attended the SETE Conference at the International Conference Centre in Durban last week. “The SETE Conference was a sports and events tourism exchange,” said Jacques. “In our strategy plan, we have already identified sports events as an important part of tourism.
During the exhibition part of the conference, I met with many different sporting bodies to engage with them on the possibility of hosting provincial and national champs in our area. The response was positive and many more conversations need to be had as these organisations plan one to five years in advance.”
According to Jacques, sport tourism is increasingly becoming a key contributor to the overall growth of South Africa’s tourism. An estimated 10% of foreign tourists out of 9.2 million arrivals in 2012 are said to have visited the country to watch or participate in sports-related events. Sports Recreation South Africa, the National Department of Tourism and SASCOC have developed a National Sports Tourism Strategy that aims to attract and host more international sporting events in South Africa.
Martine Ainsworth-Wells, who is the director and founder of Ainsworth and Wells UK, was one of the many speakers at the conference. Martine spent nine years from 2004 to 2012 working under the administrations of London mayors and she was responsible for London’s pre-Olympic bid, pre-Games and Games-time global tourism marketing, brand and communications as Visit London.
Toti has hosted a number of prestigious sports events recently, more notably the KZN and SA cross-country champs at Hutchison Park and national surf lifesaving champs at Toti main beach.
“Toti will host the 2014 SA Woman’s Golf Championships in October, which SCTT is very excited about,” said Jacques. “This is a great opportunity for our town to host some 350 golfers over the four-day event.” A tourism task team needs to be formed in order to deal with this event. If any members of the public would like to get involved, email Jacques at chairman@totitourism.co.za.
