By: Khanyisani Dlomo and Sphamandla Blose

Kwa-Zulu Natal Tourism plans to intensify its international marketing efforts to secure an ever-greater slice in the world’s dynamic tourism market.

Addressing the international and national trade in this year’s Tourism Indaba breakfast at Hilton hotel on Saturday, authority made reference to provincial master planning, strategic partnerships and consistent brand packaging and communications as key components on its quest.

Tourism Kwa-Zulu Natal Board Chairman, Sadha Naidoo, emphasized the need for tourism players to adapt to the dynamic global tourism landscape and the ever-changing ‘face of tourism’. “We are all acutely aware of the fact that the global tourism market is a highly competitive environment in which to operate,” he said. “No player can afford to rest on his or her laurels, for to do so will result in losing competitive edge.”

KZN MEC for Economic Development and Tourism, Michael Mabuyakhulu, outlined the process undertaken to develop the province’s 20-year KZN Tourism Master Plan.

“Those countries and regions that plan best to maximize their tourism potential and critically put into place the necessary interventions to implement such plans, will be the areas that are successful in growing their tourism market share,” Mabuyakhulu said.

He also said that the province has set out ambitious targets for 2030. They aim to “steer our regional tourism industry onto a development projectory which would give effect to global recognition” of the province as the Africa’s top beach destination with added attraction such as heritages experiences, scenic and a unique blend of wildlife.

Tourism KZN Chief Executive Officer, Ndabo Khoza, said that the intention of the provincial tourism is to impact the current trends in terms of packaging the country internationally.

“Our commitment is to adapt to the ever-changing ‘face of tourism’ and understanding the new tourist expectation to fully experience the destination. We have engineered our brand communications and brand packaging for the geographically-located sub-destinations used previously, to focus our marketing of KwaZulu-Natal and South Africa, using key and iconic experiences,” he added.

Khoza also said that to take the province to the next level, they need to entrench partnerships with the entire tourism value chain including inbound and outbound trade, sales agents, tourism products owners, airlines and tourism marketing agencies.

The event marked the launch of Tourism KZN’s “Exceptional Guide to packaging Kwa-Zulu Natal”, which is an over-arching guide for the travel trade to sell destination Kwa-Zulu Natal.