By Nangamso Mabindla
28 September 2004

BUFFALO City launched a tourism master plan at the East London City Hall on Monday, 27 September as part of an initiative to attract visitors to the region.

The document, which outlines a 10-year strategic plan involving the key issues of planning, development and marketing of tourism opportunities in the City, was handed over to Buffalo City mayor Sindisile Maclean.

Besides highlighting the city's current tourism sites and opportunities, the plan identifies potential job-creating tourism prospects and areas that still need work in terms of skills and infrastructural development.

The master plan was sponsored by USAID through a support programme run by the department of provincial and local government.

Receiving the document from a USAID representative, Maclean said: "The master plan will enable us to tap strategically into the world's most lucrative economic driver."

In order to attract international tourists, Buffalo City tourism needed to play a bigger role, and through its marketing efforts more recognition, in turn, would be brought to the city.

"The plan will do just that. It will take tourism away from its traditional narrow cast-in-the-box thinking and transform it into a tool for true economic growth," Maclean said.

The Buffalo City mayor said the city had a long way to go compared to neighbouring Nelson Mandela Metro. "We have 734 000 domestic tourists a year staying five days and spending R70 a day," he said. The Nelson Mandela Metro on the other hand had 972 000 people staying seven days and spending R85 a day.

"Our foreign tourists number 105 000 for one day, spending R750 while Port Elizabeth has 390 000 who stay for four days and spend R800 a day," he added.

However, the new plan provided the city with strategies to improve these statistics. "It addresses realistically the tired mistakes of the past and is also sensitive to the costly marketing required to put warm bodies in beds."

After the official function, City officials and tourism delegates were taken on a tour of some of the city's prospective tourism sites, including the uMthiza Game Reserve, some five kilometres from East London, the recently launched Mdantsane Tourism Centre, and the Mngqesha Great Place near King William's Town.