Ballito is in danger of falling in the shadow of Umhlanga and Durban, which have thriving tourism associations and Urban Improvement Precincts.
Peter Rose, the chairman of the Umhlanga Community Tourism Organisation (CTO), runs the organisation which represents hundreds of tourism businesses in Umhlanga.
“The fact is that the private sector owns tourism products and they need to drive their own CTO,” Rose told a tourism forum held at Hirsch’s in Ballito recently.
Taking a trip to Umhlanga is a pleasure, with a thriving main street and pumping local night spots. The beaches are easy to access thanks to a well maintained promenade.
However, a driving factor of the area’s success is the CTO which is run by and for its local tourism businesses.
Despite new legislation requiring tourism businesses to join a local CTO and mandating the help of local municipalities, Ballito has been without a tourism body for a number of years.
The last official body was the Dolphin Coast Publicity Association, which was formed some time around 1985.
The association ran as a non-profit membership organisation that was funded by membership fees and received grant-in-aid from the local municipality.
It met an untimely end in 2003 when the KwaDukuza municipality took over its running. There was confusion over what the organisation did and some felt the association was not representative of the wider community.
KwaDukuza municipality then took over the information centre which is now the Sangweni Tourist Information Centre at the entrance of Ballito. It had, in the past been staffed and run by the publicity association.
The local Bed and Breakfast Association also fell away a number of years ago and there is no official tourism organisation in the area at present.
The Ballito Urban Improvement Precinct has received “yays and nays” from members of the community, mainly due to concerns about the costs involved.
However, the UIP could see Ballito’s beach front and promenade transform into something like that of Umhlanga and Durban,
