Last year it was announced that the Indaba would be hosted for the next five years at the Durban ICC in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal (KZN). The Deputy Mayor also spoke about the recent announcement that British Airways (BA) will now be flying direct from Heathrow, United Kingdom (UK) to King Shaka International Airport, KZN.
“The gateway to Europe is now open. We are taking Durban to the world and the world to Durban. The UK is a key source market for South Africa.”
This, together with the projects the municipality has undertaken, will not only change the skyline of Durban but also change the economic landscape of the city. “Over the next five years we want to raise the bar by leveraging the Indaba as a permanent show in Durban,” she adds.
The city has already embarked on a number of public-private partnerships with this in mind, such as the cruise terminal to complete the Durban Point Promenade and the expanding waterfront past uShaka.
“We are creating construction jobs through these projects which will eventually lead to over 700 permanent jobs. Our president has not minced his words and has called on us to create an economic agenda to grow jobs. His call came at a time when we had already adopted several projects to change the landscape of our city. Our work is in line with the national government’s priorities and we are confident that we have responded adequately to the call by our president,” she says.
She reiterates that they want to grow this platform to grow tourism for all and to Africa and beyond. “We are creating an enabling environment for business to thrive in Durban. It is always an honour to host the biggest gathering of stakeholders and key decision makers in the tourism industry in the Southern Hemisphere and we thank our host for trusting us to do so for the next five years.”
This is a Pan African event, says acting premier of the province, Sihle Zikalala, and we encourage intra-African trade, which resonates in the tourism industry especially. “We make it easy to trade with European countries, but difficult to do so within the continent, amongst ourselves. As such, we are working on a number of initiatives to promote trade in SADC.”
