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The City With A Name Everyone’s Fighting Over – Greetings tourism colleagues. I have asked that this post be published because I had a strange and somewhat disturbing phone call on my private number this afternoon which went something along these (somewhat abbreviated) lines:
“Sharon van Wyk. Who the hell do you think you are. I [...]

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“This is amazing, I never even knew this existed!” With this one phrase, Witteberg High School pupil Jackie Kerkhof neatly sums up one of South Africa’s hidden tourism gems – the Basotho Cultural Village Rest Camp and Museum at Golden Gate Highlands National Park in the eastern Free State.
The Bethlehem schoolgirl and her fellow learners [...]

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Somewhere near Chirundu, Zambia – Greetings oh freezing ones in the land of the people of the south… I come to you today from the depths of the Dark Continent, on the banks of the mighty Zambezi river, a few kilometres downstream from the bustling settlement of Chirundu and the confluence of the almost-as-mighty Kafue [...]

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City of the Small Ape – Yes, I am writing about a flaming soccer tournament again. You better get used to it because that’s all that anyone seems to be focusing on at the moment. In this case, as opposed to the rather large soccer tournament which is less than a year away, I am [...]

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O R Tambo International – Howzit my chinas? Here I am, fresh from another bout of rather-large-soccer-tournament bashing, aving a late breakfast at ORTIA while I wait for a (late) flight from Blighty (what’s new?) The place is packed (as usual) and teeming with faces of every hue, shape, size and description, most of which [...]

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Loftus Versveld – My mate Darren* and his rugby-loving tjommies are a tad peeved. For years they’ve had a box here at the home of the Blou Bulle, those fine, hefty jong manne who seem to be the only South African side capable of doing anything vaguely clever with a ball at the moment (albeit [...]

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Die Boerestad, noord van die Jukskei – Greetings from behind the boerewors curtain my tourism tjommies and welcome to a new era in this vibrant and exciting industry of ours… Now begins the epoch of Meneer Zuma, the Zulu from the stoep, and the newly formed Department of Tourism, under the leadership of, well, the [...]

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Pongola – Yup. Here I am, recovering from all that Indaba tequila, living it up in tented style at White Elephant Safari Lodge in the Pongola Game Reserve. I’ve been reeling in tiger fish on Lake Jozini like the mad keen fisher I am (can someone please explain why Jozini tigers, a fresh water fish [...]

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Indaba, Durbs by the Sea – The arrivals stats are down, attendance seems to be down (depending on whose point of view you listen to), Mexican pigs are giving people flu and its raining… but none of this seems to be dampening enthusiasm for African tourism products, OK, I use the term “dampening” under advisement [...]

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ORTIA – I’ve got my bags packed, my slip-slops and board shorts at the ready and my party hat to hand… Yes – it’s that time of the year again when anyone who is anybody in tourism goes off to Durbs by the sea for the jol of all jols – Indaba….The very name makes [...]

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