… Ngwenya Border Gate alone records 6 330 on New Year’s Eve only
BY PHUMELELE MKHONTA AND FIONA MOTSA
MBABANE- Eswatini was the place to be during the festive season.
Justifying this assessment are statistics which were revealed by Chief Immigrations Officer Makhosi Simelane, who said people who came in the country’s six main border gates had multiplied by four this festive season. Simelane was comparing this to the year 2020 and year 2021 during the same time.
The Chief Immigrations Officer revealed this earlier today to this publication in an interview.
Worth noting is that Simelane highlighted that the compilation of statistics on activity at the different border gates and border posts for the festive season was still incomplete as the Ministry of Home Affairs was still compiling it.
Explaining the above numbers, Simelane said the assessment was made from border gates Ngwenya, Lavumisa, Matsamo, Mahamba, Lomahasha, Mhlumeni, and Mananga.
He said an average increase of people coming into the country between date December 30, 2022, and January 1, 2023, was 80 percent.
“In Ngwenya alone, people coming in multiplied by three from last year and the year 2020- meaning there was a total of 6 330 during these dates. Matsamo drastically increased activity as people coming in multiplied by six, meaning there were 2 600 coming in during the said dates.
“So then, this was a trend for the festive season for the different border gates. People coming in were multiplied by three to six times across the different stations,” said Simelane.
This, then, means an average increase for the main border gates was 80 percent.
Simelane said they attributed the increase to the uplifting of travel restrictions which he said, has seen an increase in activity at the border gates.
Efforts to get comment from Eswatini Tourism Authority (ETA) regarding the notable increase at the border gates over the festive season proved to be futile by the time this article was being compiled.
However, about two weeks ago, ETA Head of Marketing Siboniso Madlopha mentioned that Eswatini was receiving an influx of tourists and most places of attraction were fully booked because of some campaigns they had launched which were promoting the country.
Madlopha said things started picking up in the country after they introduced a campaign themed ‘Choose Eswatini This Festive’.
He said during the campaign, they promoted many places in the country and they gave out prizes to people who participated.
“This campaign gained momentum and we experienced many emaSwati visiting may tourist attraction sites for the day or booking out for the whole weekend,” said Madlopha.
Explaining, he also said they also had other concepts like the Tri-Land, which includes touring Eswatini-Mozambique-South Africa. The Tri-Land concept is where each other promotes its tourists to visit the next country. In some cases, packages to visit the three countries have been created.
