By Hendrick Mphande
NELSON Mandela Bay Tourism (NMBT) has dubbed this year‘s Splash Festival a success despite the cold and rainy weather.
Officials said they believed that by the end of yesterday they would have reached their target of attracting 400 000 holidaymakers and festival-goers to the beachfront.
“This has been one of the best festivals ever and by the end of the day we will reach our target,” said NMBT spokesman Connie Buso. She said the tourism agency had received positive feedback from various establishments with regard to visitors and accommodation.
Three different methods were used to estimate the number of people visiting the festival.
A police chopper flying above the beaches was used to get an aerial view, security personnel blocked off a section of Beach Road and counted pedestrians as they checked them, and NMBT also relied on statistics supplied by the tourism department at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University.
Buso said accommodation establishments in the city were fully booked and businesses, especially small traders‘ food stalls, derived significant benefit from the weekend‘s Splash Festival.
“Though we did not attract as many people as we had anticipated, the bad weather made very little impact and failed to deter the festival-goers,” Buso said.