Mossel Bay unveils South America Strategy

Mossel Bay has launched its South-South Strategy, which seeks to create tourism, business, social welfare and scientific opportunities for locals in South America – and for South Americans in South Africa.

It’s a strategy that’s been hailed by the industry as one of the most unique tourism marketing concepts introduced for some time.

“The catalyst was definitely FIFA’s World Cup,” said Mossel Bay’s 2010 coordinator, Louis Harris, “but the prime driver is the changing face of the world’s economy as a result of the current recession – and our desire to tap into new, and more accessible markets.

“Bidding to host a team base camp for 2010 brought us into contact with many South Americans who wanted to build closer relationships with South Africa – such as the Argentinean and Paraguayan Ministries of Tourism.

“As a result of this, and in keeping with Government’s wishes that the World Cup should have lasting benefit for the communities it touches, our South-South Strategy was created – and it’s since become one of Mossel Bay’s most important Legacy Projects.”

Mr. Harris pointed out that it was clear from the start that language was the only barrier to achieving the Strategy’s potential. “To resolve this, we entered into an agreement with the University of Buenos Aires to open a language faculty here in Mossel Bay – and now, under the management of Armiger (Pty) Ltd, we’re aiming to teach Spanish to at least 300 (but preferably 400) people in the hospitality, safety, and services sectors, and about 120 will have graduated by the end of this month,” he said.

Mossel Bay Tourism’s Marcia Holm will launch the program at workshops in Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires this week, and so begin the process of marketing the town to the Mercosur – or Southern Common Market – countries of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.

Ms. Holm has taken some powerful marketing tools with her to South America – including a Spanish language brochure titled ‘Things To Do in Mossel Bay,’ and the town’s newly-launched Spanish language web site (www.mosselbay2010.com.ar – which went live last Friday).

She will also use bookmarks to bring attention to the town’s Portuguese and Spanish websites.

“It’s important that the information we offer is immediately available to the markets we’re trying to attract, so we’ve built our marketing plan on the simple idea that ‘We Speak Spanish’,” said Mr. Harris.

“We believe that if we can convince potential visitors of this one fact, the rest of our strategy will fall naturally into place.”

FOUR PILLARS

The South-South Strategy rests on four pillars:

(a) The promotion of tourism between the Mercosur Countries and the Western Cape Province in general – and Mossel Bay in particular – is expected to have almost immediate benefit because of the ease of access between South America and South Africa, especially in the light of SAA’s newly introduced services between Buenos Aires and Cape Town via Johannesburg.

(b) The promotion of social welfare in South Africa will be brought about through the introduction by Argentina of the concept of Mutual Societies to sub-Saharan Africa. To this end, the Municipality of Mossel Bay will provide office space for the American Association of Mutuals.

Mr. Harris said that sport would take its place as a sub-branch of the ‘welfare pillar,’ because “it is seen as a powerful healer and builder of communities.

“We will thus use the presence of our existing facilities – as well as the new FIFA-standard Pitch that’s presently under construction, and the proposed Nautilus Bay Sports Academy – to promote various forms of sport in conjunction with Argentina and Brazil, whose sports ministers are keen to send specialists to train our local coaches and managers,” he said.

(c) The promotion of business opportunities is seen as a natural extension of the increased contact between South Africa and the Mercosur Countries, and,

(d) The Promotion of scientific and cultural exchanges is seen as a natural extension of the importance of Mossel Bay as an archaeological hotspot (the Mossel Bay Archaeology Project has recently shown that modern human behaviour emerged in the region 165,000 years ago).

“The South–South strategy aims to increase the flow of visitors via these four pillars – and is also very much focused on bringing business to Mossel Bay and the Eden Region in the traditionally quiet winter period,” said Mr. Harris.

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