Holidays and hibernation

THE Eastern Cape has a lot going for it during the South African winter.

At the coast the weather and the water are warmer while inland the mountain streams teem with trout and bass as well as offering visitors an opportunity to experience snow and solitude.

All of this happens while the rest of South Africa shivers inland or is cold and wet along the Western Cape coast.

Pundits for years have been saying the province should seize the opportunity provided by our weather and sell the province as the country's winter getaway where one can go to the beach and tan while the rest of South Africa wraps up warmly.

This year the Eastern Cape Tourism Board took the advice and, with the help of tourism product owners, developed a host of packages throughout the province under the banner of "Chill out in the Eastern Cape".

The campaign has been very visible and audible in the media, particularly in the Western Cape and Gauteng.

This level of proactivity has led to the province experiencing one of its best June holiday seasons ever.

The doom and gloom forecast by attacks along the Wild Coast ahead of the holidays might have overshadowed the ECTB's print and radio campaign and possibly led to a few cancellations following the attacks.

What went a long way to reversing this was the speed at which senior police officers took charge of the situation, set up a tourism unit and task team and launched a massive manhunt to bring the culprits to book.

This and the promise of holiday safety along the Wild Coast must have hit home as the area for the past few weeks has been abuzz with activity from out-of-towners.

Patrol cars, mounted police and visible beat officers in the main tourism areas made the area safer and gave peace of mind to many of the visitors which must have led to a reasonable amount of word-of-mouth recommendation to ensure further spin-offs from this season.

However, the area that seems to have reaped the least benefit from these school holidays has been East London and it makes no sense as the city has the same weather as elsewhere along the coast.

The city appears also to have ignored a huge marketing opportunity from the expanded air service that has grown the number of people arriving and leaving the city by almost a third.

Little seems to be done to sell the city or make the region stand out as a gateway to the rest of the province.

Since November last year, Tourism Buffalo City appears to have been in a state of hibernation.

The low-cost airlines have found East London a very pleasant surprise in terms of how well supported the route has become.

Perhaps the city should look at this as a route to get what should be this area's rightful slice of the tourism pie before the summer season.