Hazyview, South Africa (TAN): Tourists movement to and from Kruger Gate and Sabi Sand Game Reserve have been affected by protests by the local people and many have missed planes and buses, media reports said.
The situation is unlikely to become better before the national elections, which are scheduled to be held in May.
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Hazyview is a sub-tropical farming town in Mpumalanga. Most of the province of Mpumalanga’s private game reserves, including Sabi Sand, are found just east of Hazyview. The 65,000-hectare Sabi Sand Game Reserve, a private game reserve in South Africa, is located on the south-western corner of the Kruger National Park.
“It is inevitable that it will continue until May,” Hazyview Chamber of Tourism and Business chairman Chris Harvie was quoted as saying by the Lowvelder.
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Tourists have missed flights, buses had to turn around and local operators suffered because tourists now preferred to fly directly into the private game reserves.
“That way they do not see or experience the rest of Mpumalanga and perceive the province to be ‘behind a fence’,” Tom Vorster of the Kruger Lowveld Chamber of Business and Tourism was quoted as saying by the Lowvelder. “It affects freelance transport operators the most because they hardly get work any more.”
None of our clients have been inconvenienced and none have missed flights. WE as operators have been inconvenienced because we have had to find alternative routes. What is getting out there is bad press which doesn’t affect the protesters until their family members start losing their jobs in tourism & hospitality because tourists stop coming here. The protests further nobody’s cause because the powers that be are not affected and they couldn’t care less about the poor people who have no water, no sanitation and no jobs. And the sad thing is when election day rolls around they will all be there voting for the ANC