International tourism fair impressed with Buffalo City
By Nangamso Mabindla
29 March 2006
VISITORS to the Tourism Trade Fair in Sweden were impressed with the Buffalo City - Gavlë partnership. In all, 53 000 delegates attended the fair, held at the Swedish Exhibition Centre in Göteborg from 23 to 26 March.
The City and its twinning partner hosted a stand at the show, with more than 3 000 brochures showing some of the best places to visit in Buffalo City. The communication manager, Darby Gounden, said the exhibition was one of the biggest in Scandinavia.
She said the exhibition gave the two cities an opportunity to market the partnership and to sell themselves as destinations for international tourists. "It gave us an opportunity to market our partnership to international delegates, but our main focus was Swedish people."
Since Buffalo City was not well know outside the country's borders, investors were hesitant about venturing into the unknown and Gounden said the exhibition gave them a chance to see what the city was all about.
"Delegates came from over 95 countries and when some of them came to our stand they were impressed with our brochures and what our city had to offer in terms of investment and tourism. Because of this interest from delegates we ended up running out of brochures."
She was joined at the exhibition by the City's mayoral delegation, in Sweden for the Buffalo City Development Strategy. "When they saw our stand they were very impressed."
The City launched its golfing brochure at the exhibition. "Golf is quite big in Sweden and most delegates took a liking to our golfing brochure," Gounden added.
She thanked the South African embassy for inviting Buffalo City to the exhibition, saying the successes achieved would set the tone for the Tourism Indaba in Durban in May.
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