Visitors are normally on transit

South Africa and Mozambique are the country’s leading market source with South Africa recording 574 291 and Mozambique recording 148 855 between January and September 2008.

Swaziland Tourism Authority’s Marketing Manager Bongani Dlamini said the most likely visitors of a country were their neighbours.

"However, we need to ask ourselves if we do need to market ourselves to our neighbours or do we just leave it to the gods? Through the statistics we have noted that a large percentage of the visitors from Mozambique have switched loyalties from Swaziland to South Africa, especially Nelspruit and we need to find out what Nelspruit has to offer," Dlamini said.

He added, "South African visitor arrivals recorded a total of 800 113 last year and about 29 percent of them did not spend the night in Swaziland. Most of them were the middle-age group. The same was noted for Mozambique which recorded a total of 226 823 last year visitor arrivals yet 60 percent of them did not spend the night. Most of the Mozambicans come into Swaziland to do business and visit friends and relatives," Dlamini.

He also noted that the long haul travellers, for instance from Germany and the United Kingdom preferred to use facilities provided by local tourist establishments.

"About 60 percent of Germans spend the night but the percentage decreases with an increase in the number of nights increase. A lot of the visitors from Germany preferred sleeping in hotels," he said.

He further mentioned that a lot of people had the perception that Africa was a wildlife destination therefore, it was important that tourism establishments, for instance, hotels prepared an itinerary that accommodated wildlife experience.

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