Hello Everyone,

Welcome to the Falaza Game Park e-Newsletter

So we find ourselves right in the middle of the world cup. Everything has been delivered on time and we are staging one of the best World Cup Tournaments ever.
From the stadiums to the opening ceremony it has been a very proud time for us.

There was huge pressure put on all sections of South African society by FIFA to get this right, and rightly so. However it is now turning out that we did not ask enough questions of FIFA and particularly MATCH their tourism and ticketing arm on whether they were getting things right on their side.

It is interesting to see a lot is now being written and said on this subject.

For one thing the ticketing system has been pathetic and for those who think this a South African problem, its not. MATCH handles this whole area.

MATCH also handles the tourism side of things and early on went around the country making huge demands on the hospitality industry in quite a threatening tone.
It turns out their predictions were way off the mark and a lot of businesses particularly small businesses are taking some pretty serious strain.

The reasons for this are varied. There was probably quite a lot of naiveté on the part of the hospitality industry. The FIFA and MATCH promises were definitely way over the top. But probably the biggest issue is the fact that the “normal” tourists are staying away from South Africa until the world cup is over.
So even if this is the quiet season for a lot of places, they are not even getting their quiet season business coming through.

In Hluhluwe 95% of the world cup business is the day trip stuff from Durban and that is quite busy, and by the nature of their business some safari operators in the reserve are doing quite well.
But the accommodation market is taking a hit.

This is happening all over the country with stories of establishments laying people off or working on short time.
There maybe some post world cup business as people take some time to see the country, for the accommodation industry lets hope so.

Marketing Moment

On the bright side though the month long advertisement South Africa is getting is almost immeasurable. If all goes well to the end (holding thumbs tightly) then the whole exercise will reap huge benefits for the tourism market.

The happy welcoming vibe that South Africa is putting out is fantastic and already the media perceptions, the public perceptions and the tourism perceptions are changing drastically.
This is being discussed on all the major news channels around the world.

It is being predicted that if a double dip recession does not take place globally and we can pull this off right to the end, prepare for a mini boom in tourism in 2011 and 2012.

This does have merit when one considers that our tourism industry was quite healthy even when there were a lot of negative perceptions around. So if the world cup sends out some positive perceptions the predictions may prove to be true.

Tourists

Tourists are just people right? We are all tourists at some stage in our lives but we do tend to become another kind of animal at times when we are tourists.
Have you ever noticed how we do the “nothing is going to spoil my holiday!” thing? Or how we believe all the road signs we see?

But if you are an inexperienced traveller in Africa, we advise you to take this next sign seriously.

Until the next time, take care.
The Falaza Team

For bookings or details on specials please contact Ann, our GM, or Bongani our reservations manager.