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S. African tourism spots not popular to soccer fans

S. African tourism spots not popular to soccer fans
0 CommentsPrint E-mail CCTV, June 17, 2010
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From seemingly endless landscapes to miles of untouched coastline, South Africa has a lot to offer to foreign tourists. But it's been almost a week since the World Cup kicked off there. And few spectators have ventured out to see the country's best attractions.

South Africa's coastal "Garden Route" is one of South Africa's most popular tourist destinations.

Japan, Denmark and France have their World Cup training grounds there, and the area was expecting an influx of soccer fans during the tournament.

But no soccer fans have come to the towns along the famed route.

Mercia Draghoender, mayor of Municipality of George said "They rather stay in the places where the matches are playing because they don't want to fly in and out. We've only got the teams and the manager and all the media people and that is all. It's not a problem, but we are very disappointed."

Many in South Africa were hoping the World Cup would begin a legacy of tourism and development. But estimates of foreign visitor numbers have fallen from around half a million to no more than 370,000.

Jan Lubbe, one local said "You have to be here to see how nice and beautiful they are. It's something you can't really explain, it's something that's out of the ordinary."

South Africa had to endure a number of negative reports during the 6 years of World Cup preparation.

Now Africans are hoping the month-long tournament will encourage tourism, investment and development on the continent.

 

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