LTA launches Provincial Tourism Month

The 2017 tourism month is celebrated under the theme, ‘I Do/We Do Tourism Sustainably’.

LTA board chairperson, Andrew Dipela encouraged the citizens of Limpopo to travel their province as a way of growing tourism and boosting the provincial economy. He said the media launch took place against the backdrop of the announcement by South African Tourism and Stats SA that Limpopo Province is leading all the provinces on the domestic tourism front.

He said the tourism sector as the biggest employer in the country is seen as a solution to challenges of poverty and unemployment facing the country and Limpopo in particular.

“The sector has the propensity to create more job opportunities given its state of resilience during economic challenges such as the technical recession that the country is experiencing at this stage,” said Dipela. Dipela said it should be our responsibility as tourism officials, tourism industry owners and drivers to create awareness about the importance of tourism in our communities.

Tourism Month is now in full swing

That of course, requires enormity of innovation from all of us including discovering new hidden gems in the province with concomitant history attached to them. “let us hold hands in the fight against the triple challenge of poverty, unemployment and inequality in our society. We can overcome this if we can encourage our people to do tourism sustainably as tourism continues to be the biggest employer in the country,” he added.

“Tourism Month is now in full swing and we urge our people to take advantage of the various special packages the industry has to offer as we celebrate Tourism Month. We further urge all our people to take part in the many activities lined up for this month as we celebrate tourism in the province,” said the interim Chief Executive Officer of LTA, Gladwin Kotsedi.

He said the agency will partner with all the relevant stakeholders to identify new hidden tourism gems of the province to be packaged for marketing.