Mbombela– South African tourism boss Oupa Pilane has pointed to Eswatini’s MTN Bushfire Festival as a clear example of how proper event planning and data collection can boost the local economy — something he says Mpumalanga is still struggling to get right.
Reacting to the latest numbers from the Eswatini Tourism Authority, which confirmed that 18,372 people travelled into the country for the festival weekend, Pilane didn’t mince words.
“Mpumalanga, there is a lesson to be learned here. Look at the stats of Bushfire. We can’t even give stats on anything that we do,” said Pilane, who chairs the Southern Africa Tourism Services Association (SATSA).
He said unlike Eswatini, which can track the economic impact of a single festival, his home province lacks basic structures like a reliable calendar of events or accurate visitor data.
“Until we can do this – right now we are just playing,” he added. “We need an international festival that can have this kind of data.”
Pilane also called for an urgent rethink in how events are organised in the province, suggesting a focused tourism indaba is long overdue.
“What we do has very little impact on the economy of the province,” he said.
Bushfire, held in the Malkerns Valley, is one of Eswatini’s biggest tourism drawcards. The recent edition attracted visitors from across the region and overseas, filling hotels, lodges, and guesthouses to near full capacity. The tourism authority’s data showed that guesthouses alone were 94.4% full that weekend, with Ezulwini topping the charts in bookings.
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