OVERVIEW Tourism New
OVERVIEW Tourism New hotel for St Francis Links. A new luxury hotel is to be built in St Francis Bay. The 60-room St Francis Links Hotel by Mantis will overlook the dam on the golf course’s final hole and provide views of the Indian Ocean and Kouga Mountains. The existing clubhouse of the St Francis Links Estate will provide facilities such as reception, restaurants and conferencing for the hotel, which has been designed to minimise the visual impact in an environment where fynbos is a feature. St Francis Links is a regular award winner as a wedding venue and for its Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course. The hotel will be constructed next to the clubhouse, which is pictured above. The Mantis Group is involved in another project that involves golf at the Fish River Sun. The land on which the resort stands had been subject to a land claim for a long time. In December 2017 the National Department of Rural Development and Land Reform (DRDLR) bought the resort and closed it down but the golf course reopened again in March 2018, under the management of Mantis. Self-catering accommodation opened at the resort about a month later. Further up the coast, a settlement has been reached between the DRDLR (on behalf of claimant communities) and Sun International on the future of the Wild Coast Sun. The uMgungundlovu claimants, who were evicted from their land by homeland leaders who rented out SECTOR INSIGHT 30 000 bottle-necked dolphins regularly visit Algoa Bay. their land at laughably low prices in the early 1980s, get all of the 700 hectares of land. The resort will pay rental for the portion of land which it uses, and the community becomes a 28.4% part-owner of the resort. Algoa Bay attracts huge numbers of bottle-nosed dolphins and visitors don’t have to take boats to view them. Pods of dolphins can be spotted from the Shark Rock Pier adjacent to Hobie Beach, made famous as the launching spot of the swimming leg of various triathlons such as the IRONMAN EASTERN CAPE BUSINESS 2019 30
OVERVIEW competition. Nelson Mandela Bay’s tourism body is calling the city the Bottlenose Capital of the World because there is apparently nowhere else where so many of them gather in one place. The Eastern Cape has superb beaches and magnificent game parks and nature reserves. The fact that parks such as the Addo Elephant National Park are malaria-free at all times is an additional selling point for foreign visitors. Port Elizabeth is the end-point of the famous Garden Route, which extends westwards to Cape Town. East London has fine beaches and is the logical starting point for trips to the magical Wild Coast. The interior of the Eastern Cape is home to several high-end private game reserves such as Shamwari, Mount Camdeboo and Kariega Game Reserve. Some luxury game lodges are located within national parks, such as the Gorah Elephant Camp, which is run by Hunter Hotels and forms part of the Addo Park. Luxury brands sometimes create a chain for their customers, so visitors might stay at the boutique Summerstand hotel in Port Elizabeth, No5 By Mantis, on their way to another Mantis property, the Oceana Beach and Wildlife Reserve. The Eastern Cape Parks and Tourism Agency runs 34 provincial nature reserves within the province. The Addo Elephant National Park is arguably the province’s greatest attraction and is under the control of South African National Parks. The Camdeboo, Mountain Zebra and Garden Route national parks offer terrains ranging from dry karoo veld and rolling mountain plateaus to forests on a rocky coastline. Hotels and casinos South Africa’s large branded hotel groups have a strong presence in the Eastern Cape but there are also regionally focussed groups together with independent hotels and resorts such as East London’s Blue Lagoon Hotel and Conference Centre, located in a prime spot at the mouth of the Nahoon River. The Billion Group has opened a new casino in Mthatha. The Mayfair Casino, which also has conference facilities, forms part of the complex that includes the BT Ngebs City Shopping Centre and the Mayfair Hotel. A Port Elizabeth hotel, the Isango Boutique Hotel and Spa, offers a variety of services beyound accomadation, including a luxury spa and hosting of weddings, conferences and parties. Kat Leisure Group’s offering extends ONLINE RESOURCES Eastern Cape Parks and Tourism Agency: www.visiteasterncape.co.za Mandela Bay Development Agency: www.mbda.co.za St Francis Tourism: www.stfrancistourism.co.za from the Kennaway Hotel on East London’s beachfront to the Queens Casino and Hotel in Queenstown and properties in the mountainous interior of Katberg and Hogsback. Premier Hotels has two hotels in East London, the Mpanga Private Game Reserve and it manages the East London International Convention Centre. The Radisson Blu in Port Elizabeth offers five-star luxury overlooking Pollock Beach. The modern 14-storey building has 173 rooms and suites. Tsogo Sun has five Eastern Cape properties. In East London the four-star Southern Sun Hemingways is next to the Hemingways Casino complex and the city has one Garden Court, as does Mthatha. Port Elizabeth has a Garden Court and a SUN1, both near Humewood Beach. Apart from the two resorts mentioned in relation to land claims, Sun International has the five-star Boardwalk Casino and Entertainment World in Port Elizabeth which includes conference and events facilities. Makana (Grahamstown) hosts the National Arts Festival every year, an 11-day extravaganza of performance art, music of every sort, art exhibitions, film, lectures, craft fairs and workshops. A study has put the economic impact of the festival at close to R350-million. Port Elizabeth maintained its reputation for “firsts” when it hosted South Africa’s first-ever day-night cricket Test match in 2017. With brand-new lighting of the latest design, St George’s Park cricket ground was illuminated to the highest international standards. 31 EASTERN CAPE BUSINESS 2019
