On Friday, National Chairperson of the Southern Africa Tourism Services Association, Oupa Pilane, said the province does not have a problem attracting tourists.
Its bigger challenge, he elaborated, was in ensuring visitors have enough reasons to stay longer, explore more of the province and spend money along the way.
Speaking at the Mpumalanga Tourism Expo in Mbombela, Pilane said about 2.7 million visitors came to the province in 2025.
But he said only about eight percent of their spending took place in Mpumalanga.
“We have people coming into the province in numbers, as you might have seen, 2.7 million visitors in 2025. And yet our spend was as little as eight percent,” Pilane said.
He added that translates to visitors spending only about R8.00 out of every R100 they have available to spend in the province.
Pilane said that limited the possibility of tourism to become a catalyst for economic growth, job creation, poverty alleviation and enterprise development.
He said Mpumalanga needs to focus not only on attracting tourists, but on developing a stronger visitor economy around its existing attractions.
-‘Tourists are coming to a showroom’-
Pilane said some of the province’s attractions are failing to create enough opportunities for visitors to spend beyond an entrance fee.
“What we have a problem with is that the tourists are coming to a showroom, they are not spending money,” he said.
He says visitors can arrive at an attraction, take photographs and leave without buying food, drinks, souvenirs or participating in additional activities.
“If you are thirsty… you are in trouble. If you are hungry… you are in trouble,” Pilane said.
For him, this represents a missed economic opportunity.
He said attractions need to be developed into broader tourism experiences that encourage visitors to spend more time and money in the surrounding communities.
Pilane points to the development of the Graskop Gorge as an example.
He said when he first identified the opportunity, the area was essentially an open field with a waterfall.
“People will come, stand. It’s a beautiful waterfall. Take pictures and leave,” he said.
He explained that products were subsequently developed around the attraction, creating more opportunities for visitors to spend money and for local businesses to participate in the tourism economy.
-Calls for greater product diversification-
Pilane said Mpumalanga also needs to diversify what is being offered to tourists, particularly by informal traders and small businesses.
He says vendors along tourism routes often sell the same products, meaning tourists have little reason to buy from multiple businesses.
“The biggest challenge that we have in the Panorama and in Mpumalanga is that our vendors sell the same thing,” Pilane said.
He said this could also result in vendors undercutting one another on price.
“One will say, ‘I’ll give you for 50 rand’, and then you jump to the next one. The next one will say, ‘I’ll give you for 40 rand’,” he said.
Pilane said the solution is product diversification, with different attractions offering visitors different experiences and products.
“What you find in the gorge, you should not find in God’s Window,” he said.
He said vendors need to be trained and supported to develop different products that complement the broader tourism offering.
For Pilane, this is particularly important because the informal sector has a direct link to community benefit.
He said developing this sector could help ensure more tourism revenue reaches communities living around attractions.
-Tourism could unlock other sectors-
Pilane said the economic benefits of a stronger tourism industry would not be limited to tourism businesses.
He believes investment in tourism projects could create opportunities in construction, marketing, electricity, transport and other sectors.
“If we can get our tourism right, it can unleash and increase other multilayer sectors,” he said.
Pilane said Mpumalanga could identify at least 20 catalytic tourism projects that could generate activity across the provincial economy.
“What does that mean? It means when they are ready, that will be construction, that will be marketing, so guys like you are now having jobs. That will be electricity, that will be transport, because we will need more people going to those,” he said.
He said these opportunities are currently being blocked by barriers that prevent the province from fully benefiting from its tourism assets.
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