Durban — The Zulu Reed Dance taking place this weekend will bond the relationship between KwaZulu-Natal and Eswatini.
The annual Umkhosi woMhlanga (Zulu Reed Dance) will be hosted by King Misuzulu kaZwelithini at Enyokeni Royal Palace in Nongoma, on Saturday, September 9.
The Zulu Reed Dance is a cultural event for the Zulus and Eswatini people.
Among the attendees are cultural leaders, visitors from in and around South Africa as well as the media from across Africa.
Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs MEC Siboniso Duma said this was a fine example of how the celebration of the province’s culture and heritage during Tourism Month provided a platform for sustainable tourism in rural areas.
He said the event provided an opportunity to grow regional tourism, increase trade activities and continue to build on the already strong bonds between KZN and Eswatini.
He also said that Eswatini is one of KZN’s key regional tourism markets with the two countries sharing both historical and cultural ties.
Their entity, Tourism KwaZulu-Natal (TKZN) is continuing with its efforts to strengthen relations between KZN and Eswatini by working closely with media from across the border to promote the province as a destination for leisure travellers during Tourism Month and leading up to the 2023 summer season.
Duma said that before the pandemic, tourist arrivals from Eswatini averaged 290 000 per annum but fell off almost completely when travel restrictions closed borders during the Covid-19 pandemic. However, by 2022 tourist arrivals from Eswatini had demonstrated a strong recovery of 89%.
He also said that he believed that this recovery had been sustained into 2023 with Statistics South Africa’s official international arrival figures for January to July 2023 pointing to a remarkable 70.6% increase when compared with the first seven months of 2022. African markets, which include Eswatini, led the way accounting for 75.8% of all arrivals into South Africa and equating to 3.6 million tourists during the January to July 2023 period.
Duma noted that movement between the two countries had historically been classified as business travel as the two regions both participated in agriculture (particularly sugar), forestry, mining and textile manufacturing. According to the World Bank, over 60% of exports from Eswatini come to South Africa and over 80% of Eswatini's imports come from South Africa.
However, more recently, there has been growth in tourism with many people from Eswatini visiting KZN to participate in what is more formerly known as heritage tourism and visiting cultural landmarks and museums and doing shopping.
Tourism KwaZulu-Natal acting chief executive Nhlanhla Khumalo pointed out that in May this year, Eswatini’s new national carrier, Eswatini Air, touched down for the first time at Durban’s King Shaka International Airport. This was the first of three direct flights per week ferrying 50 passengers between Durban and Maseru in an Embraer ERJ 145 aircraft.
Khumalo said that during the same month, Tourism KZN participated in the 2023 Bushfire Music experience and promoted the province as a must-visit destination, this activation saw over 300 people per day who enquired about KZN tourism products.
“It is important that we explore our shared heritage that reaches back hundreds of years to a time before the region was colonised and then extends to the struggle years when Eswatini supported South Africa’s quest for freedom from apartheid. The Umkhosi woMhlanga is an important event where we can reach back to our rich historical roots whilst also celebrating how our shared cultural heritage can impact on the relationship between KZN and Eswatini going into the future,” Khumalo said.
The Zulu Reed Dance was re-introduced in 1984 by the late King Goodwill Zwelithini and supported by the then KwaZulu-Natal government. From the outset, the re-establishment of the ceremony – which has since been used to speak out against the scourge of gender-based violence – has been supported by the Kingdom of Eswatini with small groups of maidens attending the KZN event every year.
MEC Duma said that over the years, the Zulu Reed Dance evolved into a unique tourist event that attracts thousands of domestic and international tourists with massive economic injections into Zululand and surrounding areas.
“Before the pandemic, the event had grown into a popular heritage and tourism attraction with the number of both domestic and international visitors growing year on year. Although this was halted during the Covid-19 lockdown, it is again gathering momentum now that our new monarch, King Misuzulu kaZwelithini, has continued with this important festival,” Duma explained.
He added that he expected the number of people attending Umkhosi woMhlanga to continue to grow given the ease of travel, between the two countries, by both road and air, together with the fact that the region’s people could cross borders without any need for expensive visas.
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