South African Tourism board has appointed Evelyn Mahlaba as the Regional Director for Africa in a bid to attract more African tourists to South Africa.
Currently statistics show that tourists from Europe and America visit South Africa annually more than those from African countries.
The United Kingdom has over 400,000 tourists visiting South Africa annually, 300,000 from the USA while Germany has over 280,000, compared to Kenya and Uganda with 26,000 and 20,000 tourists visiting South Africa respectively.
Mahlaba’s primary responsibility is to oversee both the strategy and operational implementation of South Africa’s destination marketing work in various key markets in East, West and Central Africa.
She will assist South African Tourism in building relationships with the African travel trade to enable those partners to easily sell South Africa to millions of African tourist to ensure sustained tourist arrivals growth for destination South Africa.
Mahlaba has a chance of tapping into the Ugandan market since trade relations between South Africa and Uganda continue to grow even though there is an imbalance in South Africa’s favour. Uganda’s exports to South Africa include cotton, gold, fish fillets, and tobacco, coffee and fresh flowers, while South Africa’s exports include machinery, plastics, chemicals and electronics, petroleum, live animals, textiles, footwear, vehicles, aircrafts and house hold goods. South Africa could strengthen links in a number of areas including information technology, health services, agro-processing, biotechnology and chemicals.
Ugandans can also visit South Africa for purposes of Education, leisure, entertainment and job hunting.
Mahlaba has a wealth of experience, and track record in travel and tourism. She began her service at South African Tourism in 2004as Global trade Relations Manager. In this position, she was responsible for developing theglobal leisure sales strategy and the marketing tools needed for its implementation.
In 2009, she assumed the role of Regional Director: Asia, Australasia and America and sheserved in this role until her recent appointment of Regional Director: Africa.
“I am passionate and excited about my new role to lead the marketing work that SouthAfrican Tourism does on the African continent. I lookforward to inviting more of our African tourists to South Africa.” Says Mahlaba.
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