Durban - Top professional travel blogger Meruschka Govender, who has a massive following around the world, is about to tell her fans about some of KwaZulu-Natal’s rare tourism gems.
Durban-born Govender, who is also known as Mzansi Girl (www.mzansgirl.com), might have been to 30 countries – including 13 in Africa – but there are some places she is not all that familiar with in her home province.
Now she has been given the chance by Tourism KZN to go on a month-long trip around the province to explore and re-discover its tourism offerings as part of the national Tourism Month campaign. She will then share her discoveries with her thousands of readers.
Several media, TV and radio personalities are currently on a six-day tour with her.
“I am looking forward to those distinctive stories that make KZN what it is,” she said.
Govender, 35, a former director of international relations for north and west Africa with the Department of Tourism, has also worked on tourism campaigns with a host of South African and overseas tourism boards, hotels and travel industry suppliers.
She consulted for SA Tourism in their latest #MeetSouthAfrica campaign.
Govender also works as a freelance social media consultant for a large hotel group.
She has 23 000 social media followers, 13 500 devotees on Twitter (@Mzansigirl), and 51 763 subscribers to her blog.
Before starting out on her adventure from Moses Mabhida Stadium this week, she said that after graduating from the University of KwaZulu-Natal she had gone into banking.
“I was in banking for two years, saved money and then went travelling. I am very passionate about travel,” she said.
Ndabo Khoza, the chief executive of Tourism KZN, said that with the world going digital it was important for the organisation to adapt and go where the consumers were to market the destination.
“Getting Mzansi Girl to be part of this campaign will allow us to grow our presence in the digital space,” he said.
There will be podcasts and YouTube clips of her journey.
Another high-profile personality on the KZN adventure is heart-throb actor Bonga Dlamini, a star in the SABC 1 soapie Uzalo.
Independent on Saturday