TokyoTomo Travel Guide

Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks Agency (MTPA) of South Africa gave an award on May 8 to Bradley Brouwer, Country Manager Japan, South African Tourism, in recognition of his outstanding job in Japan for marketing and promotion of Mpumalanga Province. Brouwer who took up the present position in 2007 soon found that South African tours sold in the Japanese market were stereotyped and left little room for selection, so he began to promote the Province as a new tourist destination since then.

He puts the reasons to recommend the Province in the following way: he believed Mpumalanga makes a good destination for the Japanese people as it has, in addition to safari, bountiful nature such as waterfalls, gorges like Blyde River Canyon, and beautiful flowers like Jacaranda. Now the situation has improved and a different picture presented itself; tours to South Africa are no longer scarce, and FIT travelers and honeymooners visiting Kruger National Park from Japan increased during 2008 as many tours were put in the market. The number of Japanese visitors to the Province is reported to have nearly tripled in 2008 over the previous year. It is hoped that charter flights would be operated from Japan to Mpumalanga before long and pave the way to scheduled flights, which is the ultimate goal for the Province, said Brouwer.

Mpumalanga, often called New Gold, is the hot destination now in South Africa. The Province had 1.3 million visitor arrivals last year from all over the world, the third most visited province in the country. Tourism industry there has grown to comprise 4 percent of the gross geographic product (GGP) offering jobs to 130,000 people. Charles Ndabeni, CEO of MTPA, said, “Our goal for 2016 is to make tourism industry contribute 8 percent of our GGP with 2.7 million incoming tourists annually, creating jobs for 300,000 people.”

Mpumalanga’s expectation toward the Japanese market is based on the survey and forecast made by World Tourism Organization (UNWTO). The forecast says overall travelers in the world are expected to double in the year 2020 to 1.6 billion and that the countries that lead the market will be Japan, China, India, Russia, and Brazil. Moreover, with relation to the Football’s World Cup, the Province looks forward to providing training sites for the participating teams.

The imminent bottleneck is the limited supply of flight seats to and from Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport. It is an international airport by name, but is served mainly by Airlink, a South African Airways’ feeder airline, in a limited number of flights. Ndabeni made a comment on this, saying that a talk is being held with British Airways and Comair who operates a low-cost carrier “kulula air” seeking feasibility of their serving the airport.

Many Japanese travelers to South Africa make a tour of southern part of the country. In 2008, however, their arrivals dropped 13.3 percent from the previous year to 27,621 because the political uncertainty heightened in the neighboring Zimbabwe. Since nearly 80 percent of Japanese visitors travel on package tours, what is required to increase visitors to Mpumalanga is to build in the destination to the South African tours. Besides, a half of Japanese tourists are seniors of an age of 60 or more, Japanese speaking guides are badly needed. Zolelwa Mukozho, chief marketing officer of MTPA, has this to say: at the request of Brouwer, the Provincial Economic Development & Planning Bureau has a plan to start training sessions to provide more Japanese-speaking guides.

Source: Travel Vision

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