A broken Skycar is Indaba’s loss

DURBAN will again miss another great opportunity to show off its tourist hot spots to international tourists who will be attending Africa’s top travel show, Tourism Indaba, due to the Skycar at Moses Mabhida still not being operational.

More than 1100 visitors who attended World Economic Forum Africa, held from May 3 to 5, were unable to ride on the Skycar.

It is believed that it has been three weeks since it became non-operational.

Last week, the stadium’s operations manager, Lunga Lamula, told the Sunday Tribune an order was placed on May 4 to replace the drives and they were expecting delivery from Johannesburg.

He said he hoped the Skycar would be up and running by the end of the week.

Durban is expecting to host more than 7 000 visitors at its Indaba 2017, which officially commences on Tuesday and ends on Thursday.

To complement the influx of tourists arriving today for the biggest travel show in Africa, the city has organised a series of township tours for some of the visitors attending this year’s Indaba.

They will be attended by tour operators from the SADC region and journalists from India, China and the US. They will visit the Valley of a Thousand Hills, Moses Mabhida Stadium, Kwamashu, Ntuzuma and Umlazi.

Ethekwini Mayor Zandile Gumede said they were expecting the Indaba to make a contribution of no less than R108 million to the city’s economy, with a direct spend of more than R29 million.

Gumede added that there was value in hosting the event. “From hosting the tourism Indaba for the past 26 years, we have gained about R26 billion, while we spend less than R20 million to host the event each year.

About 200 jobs were expected to be created through the duration of the Indaba.