MORE THAN JUST FOOTBALL 23 Feb 2009
Applications for the World Cup 2010 tickets opened on Friday 20 February and the Local Organising Committee of FIFA (LOC) are more worried about the 2009 Confederations Cup sales. The opening match is only three months away and only around 20% of tickets have been sold.
Sales were brisk in November last year but have now been slow during December and January and February has seen little improvement. “Hopefully, March and April will see an improvement,” comments LOC CEO, Danny Jordan.
But overseas fans will have more than great soccer to look forward to during their stay in South Africa. The scheduling of the games leaves adequate opportunity to make short tours to favoured areas like Cape Town, Durban and various Game Reserves and still not miss any of the action on the pitches in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Rustenburg and Bloemfontein. Local tour operators have an array of well priced packages to suit all pockets and tastes and it is also possible to arrange for a tailor made getaway to almost any location in the sub continent. Some of the unique places visitors can see include:
The Big Five in a number of world class Game Reserves
- Whales along the southern Cape coast, around Hermanus
- Cape Point, where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet,
- Table Mountain and the winelands of Stellenbosch and Franschhoek
- Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens
- Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated for 29 years
- Sun City – SA’s mini Las Vegas, and famous Gary Payer golf course, where the Million $ challenge is played in December every year
- The Cullinan Diamond Mine, near Pretoria where the largest stone in the world was found
Other available activities tourists will enjoy:
- Swimming with penguins at False Bay’s Boulders Beach in Simonstown
- Diving in a cage amongst the fearsome Great White sharks off Gansbaai
- Taking a chopper flip around Cape Town’s breathtaking peninsula
- Enjoy the warm winter waters (220) of the Indian Ocean off our KwaZulu Natal coast
- View and learn about sharks at Natal’s famous Shark Board facility near Durban
Overseas football fans should begin deciding on which packages they are interested in, because as soon as ticket sales begin improving, so will the availability of travel packages decrease, leaving fans with less choice of destinations.
Opinion by Robert Wilson
CEO, Magic Marketing & Travel in South Africa.net
Specialist Tour and Transport Operators, Johannesburg, South Africa
