Development of Mpumalanga Provincial Tourism Master Plan, South Africa
Date: 29 May 2007
The province of Mpumalanga is one of the nine provinces in the nation of South Africa. It is situated in the north eastern part of the country and shares borders with Mozambique and the Kingdom of Swaziland.
The Mpumalanga province covers a total land area of 79,338 sq km out of the total national land area of 1,221,246 sq km, representing about 6.5% of the total land area of South Africa. A population of 3.3 million people out of the total national population of 47.3 million is found in Mpumalanga.
Mpumalanga enjoys relative importance in South Africa as a tourist destination and captures 16% of the total tourist arrivals in South Africa. Its good and modern infrastructure, and tourism assets such as the world famous Kruger National Park, have acted as a magnet to tourists.
The full tourism potential has not been realized mainly due to uncoordinated plans and actions by various players within the sector, some of which are in conflict with the Provincial Government’s development objectives. A new project will shortly be launched to provide technical assistance Secretariat to the Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks Authority of the Mpumalanga Provincial Government to develop a tourism growth strategy for the province. The aim will be to address the lack of coordination and to synthesis the various plans into one which balances various interests and is aligned to the development objectives of the province. The strategy will cover the areas of marketing, product development, human resources and an institutional framework that supports public and private sector partnership in developing tourism.