LTA upbeat to grow Limpopo tourism

Limpopo

According to South African Business, the Limpopo Tourism Agency (LTA) is working hard to position the province’s natural and cultural marvels to attract increasing numbers of tourists.

The agency is confident that investors will find much to inspire them in Limpopo with tourism arrivals from South Africa’s core international markets given its broad tourism product offerings and appeal. 

Before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, Limpopo Province was the leading destination in terms of arrivals and spend in the domestic tourism space.

The most recent statistical release by Statistics South Africa shows that in 2020 the Eastern Cape received 18.2% and became the most-visited destination for overnight trips followed by Limpopo with 18.0%.

In 2021, the most-visited province was Limpopo with 20.3% followed by Gauteng at 15.1%. The report also states that Limpopo continued to be the leading province in the first 10 months of the year in which the report was compiled, 2022.

This speedy recovery can be attributed to the partnership efforts that the LTA embarked on with the private sector. This initiative continues to provide visitors to destination Limpopo with the memorable experiences that they will treasure for a long time.

This was perfectly in line with the agency’s vision of becoming a leading tourism destination in Southern Africa.

The LTA’s mandate is to carry out destination marketing with an emphasis on domestic tourism and inbound tourism marketing until things have completely returned to normality.

The LTA falls under the Limpopo Department of Economic Development, Environment and Tourism (LEDET) and aims to position Limpopo as a leading tourism destination in Southern Africa. The Agency’s strategic outcomes are, effective and efficient administrative support in the organisation, to provide efficient and effective human resources support services, to provide efficient and effective finance and support services, initiate product development, tourism investment and strategic partnerships and provide quality hospitality services.

To position Limpopo as a leading tourism destination in Southern Africa, the Limpopo Marula Festival has proved a great success over the years, not only drawing international audiences but promoting local culture and small businesses.

Planning that has been done within the LTA is aligned to the National Tourism Sector Strategy (NTSS), the Limpopo Tourism Growth Strategy (LTGS) and the Limpopo Development Plan.

For the purposes of achieving its vision of making Limpopo a leading tourism destination in Southern Africa, LTA reviewed its clusters, bearing in mind the unique wildlife offerings in the mega-conservation areas of the province.

The tourism clusters include; Culture and Heritage Cluster, Family and Recreation Cluster, Sport and Wildlife Cluster, Safari and Hunting Cluster, Business and Events Cluster, Special Interest Cluster.

Flagship events identified by LTA as key to driving people from one place to another include the Limpopo Golf Championship and the Youth Golf Championship.

The Agency participated in trade shows such as World Travel Market (WTM) in Cape Town, followed by Africa’s Travel Indaba in Durban.

LTA CEO, Moses Ngobeni, is confident that investors will find much to inspire them in Limpopo.

“Our province is the north-most in the country with several competitive advantages including sharing borders with three countries in the SADC region, that is, Botswana in the west, Zimbabwe in the north and Mozambique in the east. To optimise this opportunity, the province became innovative by introducing two transfrontier parks, namely, Greater Mapungubwe Transfrontier Park involving Limpopo, Botswana and Zimbabwe and Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park involving Limpopo, Zimbabwe and Mozambique,” he said.

Ngobeni said tourism in Limpopo is progressing well despite having been under stress over the past three years due to Covid-19.

“It is heart-warming to see the tremendous progress that the sector displayed shortly after the difficult times of the pandemic. We are grateful for the resilience shown by the tourism industry and we wish to thank government for the Tourism Sector Recovery Plan that was developed for the tourism sector,” he said.

Ngobeni stated that the province is currently ranked within the top three in the country on domestic tourism.

“The LTA has since taken a strong stance in collaborating with key stakeholders as that is central to tourism development and growth. It is against this background that we partner with major events as these not only drive people to our province but also because these events help to address the triple challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality which are the ills continuing to torment the people of our province. Some of the mega events in the province come with tangible deliverables to rid the people of the burden of poverty,” he said.