Industry Face-Off: North West Tourism vs. Gauteng Tourism
27. May, 2009
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This week’s tourism face-off is between the North West Province and Gauteng because they are neighbours and the only provinces sharing World Heritage Sites. Both are also situated very centrally in South Africa. Remember to visit our poll at the end.
North West Province tourism: CEO: Allan Losaba
Overview
The North West Province was created in 1994 by the merger of Bophuthatswana, one of the former Bantustans (or black homelands), and the western part of Transvaal, one of the four former South African provinces.
Much of the province consists of flat areas of scattered trees and grassland. The Magaliesberg mountain range in the northeast extends about 130 km (about 80 miles) from Pretoria to Rustenburg. The Vaal River flows along the southern border of the province.
The mainstay of the economy of North West Province is mining, which generates more than half of the province’s gross domestic product and provides jobs for a quarter of its workforce. The chief minerals are gold, mined at Orkney and Klerksdorp; uranium, mined at Klerksdorp; platinum, mined at Rustenburg and Brits; and diamonds, mined at Lichtenburg, Christiana, and Bloemhof. The northern and western parts of the province have many sheep farms and cattle and game ranches. The eastern and southern parts are crop-growing regions that produce maize (corn), sunflowers, tobacco, cotton, and citrus fruits. The entertainment and casino complex at Sun City and Lost City also contributes to the provincial economy.
Future plans?
Even though there is strong regional and international competition, the business tourism sector within the North West Province of South Africa has grown substantially during recent years. In this regard, the aim of the North West Parks & Tourism Board is to position the province as a unique, desirable and feasible destination for meetings, incentives and conferences.
Which parts/sights of NW would you describe as the province’s trump cards?
Sun City and the Lost Palace, Pilanesberg National Park, Hartbeespoort Dam and Vredefort Dome.
Secrets of your growing success?
We involve communities to an increasing extent in our projects. The NW Tourism and Parks Board supports and facilitates community-based tourism (CBT) in the province. We achieve this by promoting community ownership of tourism assets, senior employment and involvement in the management of the Province’s tourism industry and by getting small businesses involved in tourism ventures.
Projects are built around communities and communities are involved in the decision-making process. Before an event like Aardklop, the community is invited to give their input; this is what makes projects happen. I think that Madikwe Game Reserve was also the first black-owned private lodge in the country.
The key focus of tourism development in the North West Province has been in and around protected areas, for example Pilanesberg National Park and Madikwe Game Reserve. Other strategies are the launching of new events and to improve current ones like Aardklop, Vodacom Soccer and golf tournaments. Apart from getting the community involved in tourism, there are also certain strengths that NWTB can capitalise on to achieve its goals.
Mining tourism is still largely undeveloped. Tourists can visit platinum mines and at the same time buy jewellery.
Other strengths include the N12 route to Cape Town and, of course, Sun City, which is an international product. The rest of the world knows Sun City and the Lost Palace intimately and the fact that the province is malaria-free is also a big advantage.
Gauteng tourism: Acting CEO: Pule Malefane
Overview
- Visitors to Gauteng enjoy 8,5 hours of sunshine per day.
- Gauteng covers only 1,4 percent of the total land area of the country.
- The Witwatersrand gold fields are estimated to be 30 times richer than any other gold fields in the world.
- There are six million trees in Johannesburg (1,2 million in parks and on pavements, and 4,8 million in residential gardens).
- The altitude in Johannesburg is 2 000 metres above sea level. About 70 000 Jacaranda trees line the streets of Tshwane. In 1888 the first two Jacaranda trees were imported from Rio de Janeiro to the city of Pretoria.
- Pretoria’s National Zoological Gardens is the largest zoo in Africa. This zoo started in 1899 with a few indigenous animals and is now home to 118 mammals and 193 bird species.
- Since 1940 there has been a breeding pair of Black Eagles nesting in the cliffs of the Walter Sisulu National Botanical Gardens in Roodepoort on the West Rand. They are one of the few breeding pairs of eagles anywhere in the world to live in an urban environment.
- Sixty percent of African tourists visit Gauteng to shop. This is not surprising as the province has over 70 major shopping malls.
- Gauteng’s major source of foreign visitors is from other African countries.
- Gauteng is known as the gateway to Africa, and some 5,78 million tourists come to Gauteng each year.
Future plans?
The negative safety and security perceptions about South Africa threaten the stability and growth of the tourism industry, which is a vital sector for economic development and job creation. This poses a direct threat as the Gauteng province is both the leading economic as well as tourism hub in South Africa.
Tourism development should among other things, cater for and contribute to, economic growth of the province, as espoused by the Growth and Development Strategy. All this is not possible if the state does not create an environment conducive for economic development as tourism safety has a potential of hampering the targeted positive growth in the province as both an investment and tourism destination.”
Our approach to tourism safety is to locate it within the broader context of SAPS Community Safety strategy and the role of Gauteng Tourism Authority will focus on stakeholder facilitation of pre and post protocol incident arrangements.
As a province that will play a crucial hosting role during the 2010 World Cup, massive investments have been made by government in the build-up to 2010 to ensure tourist safety and security.
Which parts/sights of Gauteng would you describe as the province’s trump cards?
- About 220 000 years ago a meteorite crater slammed into the earth (north west of present day Pretoria) resulting in the Tswaing impact crater – one of the youngest and best preserved small bowl-shaped meteorite impact craters in the world.
- Some of the world’s earliest hominid sites are found in Gauteng and in 1999 UNESCO declared the Cradle of Humankind in Sterkfontein a World Heritage Site.
Secrets of your growing success?
We actively market the business hub, exciting nightlife, adventures, outdoors, scenic wildlife, heritage and affordable tours of Gauteng because that’s why people come to visit us in their millions each year.
Please feel free to suggest any industry players or leaders in their field to be included in our Industry Face-Off.
My name is Muzi Mohale a full-time travel blogger, your host at Travelwires.com responsible for all editorial on this blog. I blog about the travel and tourism industry in Africa. Apart from blogging about tourism, I also run 
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