On Thursday, 24 March, the Thulamela Local Municipality conducted a media tour to the Phiphidi Waterfall, the Tshivhase Tea Estate, and the Tshirovha Waterfall and visited the viewing point at Lake Fundudzi as a means of promoting tourism and business opportunities in the region.
Local Economic Development (LED) manager of the municipality Mr Mulalo Nemakonde said that the municipality had always boasted about its rich heritage of arts, culture and many natural tourist attractions, but the Covid-19 pandemic had put a damper on promoting these treasures.
"We have to promote arts, culture, heritage, and tourism in order to attract more tourists to our municipality, who can make good investments here. We must also stimulate the interest of the tourism authorities of neighbouring countries and thus help to generate an income for our local municipality," said Nemakonde, adding that he hoped that this tour, which included representatives from various media houses, would also provide the needed exposure.
In Limpopo Premier Stanley Mathabatha's recent state-of-the-province address on 24 February, he said: "With regard to the Tshivhase/Mukumbani Tea Estate, we are looking into possibilities to replace the tea with a more viable and profitable commodity that will sustain the project and restore jobs for local communities." Nemakonde's response to this statement was that tea plantations had been a source of income for many years for single mothers who supported their families and served as a popular tourist attraction. He said he hoped that the project to replace the tea plantation would be able to help communities get jobs.
Renowned tour guide in the Vhembe region Mr Maine Mashudu Dima, who joined the tour group, told the media and other stakeholders to pay close attention to the "no-go" areas and observe the rules carefully as some places were sacred and therefore restricted to the public.
One of the media representatives, Ms Jacqui Mafenya from Vhembe FM, thought the Thulamela media tour had been very insightful and said that visiting the various tourist attractions in the area would help the journalists to report in a more informed manner.