NELSON MANDELA BAY TOURISM RETURNS FROM A PROSPEROUS INDABA 2015

13 May 2015
NELSON MANDELA BAY TOURISM RETURNS FROM A PROSPEROUS INDABA 2015

Members who attended the Indaba

Nelson Mandela Bay Tourism (NMBT) participated in a prosperous Tourism Indaba from the 9th – 11th May 2015 which provided a global platform to showcase the destinations unique product offerings.

 

INDABA is one of the largest tourism marketing events on the African calendar and one of the top three ‘must visit’ events of its kind on the global calendar. It showcases the widest variety of Southern Africa's best tourism products, and attracts international buyers and media from across the world.

 

Nelson Mandela Bay Tourism CEO, Ms Mandlakazi Skefile shared their strategy for Indaba, “We were ready to share our unique story as the City of Freedom and market Nelson Mandela Bay as a must see destination by packaging our unique product offerings and world class events whilst  making the destination enticing and accessible to all.”

 

NMBT launched a new web-site at Indaba which will be focused on functionality and search engine visibility. The new web-site talks to the dream phase of travelling as it inspires the visitor to experience Nelson Mandela Bay and is also mobile friendly and accessible on multiple types of devices.

 

The Nelson Mandela Bay Pass is a tool which packages a variety of attractions and activities in Nelson Mandela Bay for visitors to experience with free and discounted entry. Tour operators and tour guides accompanied Nelson Mandela Bay Tourism to market the destination and packages to industry trade and buyers on a one on one basis. It was all about making Nelson Mandela Bay accessible to all budgets.

 

Ms Mandlakazi Skefile, CEO of Nelson Mandela Bay Tourism confirms, “In order for a destination to be attractive to visitors we need to offer experiences. Therefore at Indaba 2015 we introduced an events calendar which lists a number of world class events unique to Nelson Mandela Bay.”

 

Unique events with world class facilities and abilities have the potential to attract to tourists to the destination and in this case specifically, Nelson Mandela Bay. This increases the sustainability of the local tourism sector positively increasing the contribution through tourism whilst sustaining employment opportunities.

 

Events being utilised to market the destination includes some well known items which are already fixtures on the calendar such as The Standard Bank Ironman Championships and The Herald Cycle Tour.  Among the sturdy recurring favourites there are some highly anticipated new events on the horizon such as the Mandela Bay International Film Festival and The Msanzi International Motorsport Show.

 

To experience all these events and activities Nelson Mandela Bay can be accessed by road, rail, sea and air. The cruise liner industry is an ever popular form of travel with increased scheduled stops set for Algoa Bay. With attractions and activities being within close range of each other and our beautiful coastline among others Nelson Mandela Bay has become popular port of call amongst the likes of Queen Mary 2 and The symphony to name a few.

 

“With all of this and more on offer, Nelson Mandela Bay has become a destination of choice for tourist to have the freedom to discover all our product offerings. Being a destination of choice is set to continuously increase visitor numbers, economic contribution and growth of the tourism industry.” confirmed Ms Skefile