FLY, STAY AND EXPERIENCE MPUMALANGA
29 April 2005
ADDRESS BY THE PREMIER OF MPUMALANGA PROVINCE MR. THABANG MAKWETLA AT FLYMPUMALANGA.COM MEDIA BRIEFING
ALL PROTOCOL OBSERVED
MEC's, business leaders and members of the media, I welcome you. The launch today of the first affordable airline service to Mpumalanga is an achievement any enterprising government can be proud of. Our people are looking forward to give the many droves of travellers who will be streaming into our province the renowned warm Mpumalanga WELCOME.
Tourism destination planning is seldom an easy exercise. Whilst it is driven by economic and market factors, unfortunately no single company can put its money to develop a destination – therefore the question is how much the public sector is prepared to contribute to developing a destination.
Whilst this is a mammoth challenge for smaller destinations, larger destinations at home and abroad have always been fortunate to have adequate circulation of financial and other resources hence have grown steadily without any public sector interventions.
To underline the above rationale: In recent years we have witnessed a quantum leap that has seen unheard of destinations becoming giants. Classical examples are Dubai Airport in the United Arab Emirates, Atlanta in the US, Liverpool John Lennon Airport in the UK just to mention but a few. These have always grown through the 21 st century organic relationship between the airports and chosen airline partners.
It is generally accepted that low cost carriers are popularising previously unheard of airports.
What is happening here today is not about the launch of an airline but bold steps in developing a destination that is said by others to be a sleeping giant to take its peers head on.
FlyMpumalanga.com is a public private partnership initiative which is aimed at making flying to Mpumalanga more accessible and affordable to local and foreign travellers. This will be done through the provision of low flying costs, increased flight frequencies and better domestic connections with some of the major travel centres.
Flying to Mpumalanga will never be the same again. With the launch of flympumalanga.com, now business and leisure air travellers into Mpumalanga will be able to reap enormous benefit from an initiative aimed at increasing air traffic – while decreasing road traffic – into the province in an attempt to boost the tourism and business sectors.
Flympumalanga.com was prompted by the concerns raised by industry leaders to my government. These concerns included the consistent congestion of the N4 national road from Nelspruit to Johannesburg/Pretoria and the shortage of flight seats to Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport for business travel.
The above mentioned situation is also compounded by the fact that people in the province are historically not frequent flyers. Only 5% of the 2, 5 million tourists visiting the province use air transport. This led to smaller aircrafts operating the route, leaving bigger aircrafts struggling to fill their seats. Inevitably fares became unaffordable to the common traveller.
“Flympumalanga.com, is an innovative response to these challenges as it will address constraints in air travel supply and also promote greater travel access to the province.
We thank our partners, Mpumalanga Tourism, Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport, the Kruger National Park, local airlines, Kulula.com and Nationwide as well as accommodation and ground transport partners.
With the slogan “Fly, Drive, Stay and Experience”, travellers will, for the first time, enjoy an affordable complete Mpumalanga experience –
I THANK YOU