Tourist Season in Pietermaritzburg

Melanie Veness:  PCB CEO

The other day I was writing a tourism article for a magazine, and, I must admit, that having made a career change, I felt somewhat liberated – I can now approach this from a perspective other than a destination marketing perspective.  Marketing an area requires that you look at things through rose-tinted specs, and now I was going to have a long, hard look at the real picture. 

The first thing that I realised, is that the view wasn’t that different. First of all, I considered how fortunate we all are to live in a city, set in the breathtaking countryside (you should see the yellows, golds and reds of the Midlands landscape at the moment!) an hour from near perfect beaches in one direction and an hour from the magnificent Drakensburg in another.

This time of the year it is high tourist season for Pietermaritzburg – and there isn’t a bed to be found in the City. There is also no shortage of things to do. The Royal Agricultural Show is celebrating it’s 160th anniversary, and the Royal Agricultural Society has pulled out all the stops to make sure that it is an unforgettable event.  This weekend saw fabulous fashion and fun betting at the Golden Horse Sprint and the finish of the epic Comrades Ultra Marathon.  I am reminded by the falling autumn leaves, that Nashua Art in the Park is about to begin – sherry and fires and fabulous art from Wednesday to Sunday.
We have a wonderful lifestyle in a beautiful place, and aside from some service delivery issues (that are not unique to us), I have every reason to feel very pleased about where I have chosen to live and to invest my energy and resources.

This made me think of something else – how important it is from a personal investment perspective and from an economic development perspective, to be positive about your city.  Consider making an investment or buying shares in a company, and then telling people what a terrible investment you’ve made or what an awful company it is. This approach would be considered ludicrous, because it impacts negatively on your investment.  What people often don’t realise, is that once they have chosen to buy a property in an area or to invest in a business, what they say about the area, impacts directly on these investments.

Also, as human beings, we tend to take things for granted – the most positive and enthusiastic people tend to be people who have just moved to an area. Just recently I have met a number of people who have relocated to Pietermaritzburg from Gauteng, for the great weather and the lifestyle. With communication technology being what it is and our local airport offering convenient flights to and from Johannesburg, it is possible to choose this lifestyle for your family, and it seems that more and more people are.

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