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Destination SA takes centre stage
A mini documentary put South Africa on centre stage during the final 2006 FIFA championship match between France and Italy yesterday, 9 July 2006. "The screening... is destination South Africa's official entrée into the homes, hearts and minds of people the world over," says Moeketsi Mosola, CEO of South African Tourism. "This is, with no doubt, the largest audience we have ever reached through a single tactic."
Adds Mosola, "We [got] this airtime during the final match, when television ratings at the World Cup [were] at their highest." The two-minute production was shown on giant TV screens in Berlin's Olympiastadion during halftime, screened in town squares across Germany and televised to more than two billion people across the world - approximately a third of the global population and almost half of the world's adults.
"There has never before been a destination that has been given an opportunity as big as this... or as exciting as this. It's a wonderful opportunity not only for us... but also for our entire industry. It sends a strong message that South Africa is not only the next host nation of the World Cup, but that it is also an amazing travel destination... a destination that has outstripped global travel growth trends and that has, in the last four years, become the darling of the international jet set.
Continues Mosola, "It's a huge shot in the arm for our travel industry. It officially heralds our coming of age as the premier travel destination in the world.
"2010 cannot be a flash in the pan. Everything that is put in place for the championship must have relevance beyond the few weeks of the event itself. As momentous at the World Cup is going to be, we cannot make it the be-all and end-all. If we do, it will be a waste of effort, energy and expense. The 2010 World Cup must leave a legacy in our region. We in travel and tourism are determined that it will do so."
The documentary features a personal invitation from former president Nelson Mandela to the world to come to South Africa, to experience the destination and to fall in love with the people, with the landscapes and with the spirit of the nation.
It gave billions of TV viewers all over the world (and the 72 000 fans that packed the Olympiastadion to watch the final) a glimpse of South Africa's awesome wide open spaces; our scintillating cities; our amazing fauna and flora... and leave them with no doubt at all that South Africans everywhere look forward to welcoming them, to giving them the travel experience of a lifetime and to sending them back home as friends and as ambassadors of our destination.
The mini-documentary was screened free of charge by Wige, one of Germany's largest television production companies.
