Joburg voted a world tourist hotspot
JOBURG - Although Joburgers themselves may not yet think of their city in this way, internationally Jozi is fast gaining recognition as one of the world’s hottest tourist destinations.
Iconic global media brands which have recently accorded Joburg this status include The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Rough Guide, the Guardian, The Times, Lonely Planet and Conde Naste Traveller.
To build on this tremendous business and job-creating opportunity, Caxton’s Local Media is joining hands with the City of Joburg and local communities in a project, which is being launched in all 800 000 of our Joburg newspapers this week, to help ensure visits to our city are a world-class experience.
For starters, the project entails shortlisting a few precincts cited by tourism guides as top places to visit and putting plans in place to make certain they are well maintained, clean and safe.
The first specific project will be the resurfacing of parts of 7th Street and 4th Avenue in Melville by JRA this week (as a spin-off Main Road, along with a few other main roads in the area were resurfaced last week). At a meeting recently hosted by Caxton, Melville community leaders gave this development an enthusiastic thumbs-up and vowed to do everything they could to take the plan further.
Although other tourist hotspots, such as 44 Stanley and Vilakazi Street are on the radar, the next areas chosen to get the project off the ground are Maboneng, Braamfontein, the Zoo/Four Seasons precinct, the Oriental Plaza/Fordsburg district and Kliptown.
Reasons for selecting them include their strong public/private sector partnership potential – in many, upgrades are already underway – and they are good examples of the diversity and demographic mix that make Joburg such a cutting-edge, exciting destination.
Bruce Sturgeon, CEO of Caxton Local Media, says the rise of Joburg as a tourist hotspot is, for a change, an unambiguously positive story, and the upside potential is huge. But our city faces stiff competition, both abroad and locally, so there is no room for complacency.
“It makes all the difference when citizens take pride in and praise such things – and that’s what we hope, with the City, to help cultivate through this project,” Sturgeon added. “Small, ongoing improvements – precinct by precinct – will, over time, make a big difference, and by helping to facilitate this and showcasing what can be achieved, we hope to foster city-wide buy-ins to ensure our city lives up to the expectations of it.”
Laura Vercueil of Johannesburg Tourism told Caxton Local Media that she and the City of Joburg were very excited about the partnership.
“As Joburg Tourism, we’re delighted to be supporting this very worthwhile Caxton initiative to create more awareness of Destination Joburg and the importance of tourism among locals.”
