DURBAN- UMNGENI Local Municipality is looking to rebuild its tourism industry, especially its premier tourist destination, the Howick Falls.
Mayor Chris Pappas, who on Thursday attended the Tourism Indaba in Durban, said the municipality had plans to improve the Howick Falls tourism spot as tourists in recent years had been driven away by crime and grime.
The Midlands has a variety of attractions including the Midlands Meander, the Falls and the Mandela Capture Site, that could all be used to boost tourism in the area and create jobs.
“We have more than doubled the tourism budget for this financial year and it now sits at R800 000. This is primarily to support our community tourism organisations and the good work that they do and also to develop a comprehensive tourism plan,” Pappas said.
“We have a great asset in Howick Falls and for many years this has been run down and there is still a lot of work to do on it, the short term goal is to make sure people can visit it, that it's clean.”
He said the medium and long term goal was to start developing that site. He added that the uMgungundlovu District Municipality had previously said it had plans to develop the area, but should they not come to fruition, uMngeni would implement its own.
Pappas said uMngeni’s plan would involve putting down a development that would be in keeping with the culture, architectural design and the feel of the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands.
“The short term goal is to maintain our tourism assets to make sure they are clean and people are safe wherever they go. The roads are usable and people are able to use our sites,” he said.
Speaking on the visit to the Tourism Indaba, he said he would be engaging with stakeholders from around the country and the continent, in order to attract people to uMngeni, show people the municipality was serious about tourism and to answer questions around investments.
Importantly, he undertook to ngage people around the different attractions that they have in the area, whether it be Midmar dam or a number of other sites around Midlands.
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