“The City that never sleeps” as Gauteng is better revered for, will for the better half of the month activate a hive of activities penciled in, as part of the Gauteng Tourism Promotion Drive initiative.
From water tourism activities in the Vaal to mu
sic, Sharpeville tour, fallen political heroes monuments tours to Heritage Month commemorations and other important gatherings, as we remember our fallen gallants.
Vaal River City #GPLifestyle Experience is a water sport adventure experience that seeks to encourage locals to be tourists in their own backyard, to explore short break leisure experiences through taking a #GeePeeShortLeft to the Vaal River City and other events taking place in the Gauteng.
According to Barba Gaoganediwe, head of communications at GTA, the chief importance of showing off the best of Gauteng:”Is to sustain and grow the province’s profile as a vibrant, urban vibe big-city region through placement of stories in the media that influence travelers; use the said positioning to increase and encourage visitation to the city region especially from key domestic and regional markets; promote Gauteng as an all-round 24/7 lifestyle entertainment destination and use events to generate editorial coverage, press content and position Gauteng as an all-round 24/7 lifestyle and entertainment destination.”
“Gauteng remains the leading business and leisure tourism destination in the country. We account to over 40% of all the international arrivals with Africa and our key source markets like Germany, United Kingdom, and America accounting for a bigger chunk of these numbers.
We are placing particular importance to domestic tourism as we account for the highest numbers of visitors into our region visiting family, relatives and friends.
We also receive more than 50% of cross-border travelers flocking to our shores for quality shopping experience supported by a vibrant African Urban City Vibe,” says Gaoganediwe.
Tourism is the world’s third largest economic sector after automobile and the banking sectors, in Gauteng it accounts to 200 000 employment thus contributing close to R30bn per annum into the coffers of the Province.
The activities are part of Township Revitalization Programme– an initiative by the Provincial Government whose aim is to help, monitor, empower, train and consolidate kasie businesses, to be legal and compliant in order to crack business from the State.
Below are stats to quantify the numbers in Gauteng:
• Arrivals – 15 million foreign arrivals by 2020.
• Domestic tourists to grow from 14.6m in 2009 to 18m by 2020 and total domestic trips to grow from 30m to 54m, with holiday trips increasing from 4m to 9m.
• GDP – Increase tourism’s contribution to the GDP from an estimated R189.4 billion in 2009 to R499 billion by 2020.
• Contribution of domestic tourism to GDP to grow from 52% in 2009 to 60% by 2020.
• Job creation – the tourism sector is committed to consolidating its efforts to create jobs and aims to create 225 000 jobs by 2020 – 177 000 in the tourism sector and 48 000 through direct government investment. –Source GTA.
As the punchline slogan simply rhymes ‘We mean business in Gauteng but equally plays very hard‘.
For more information got to www.gauteng.net
