Media Release: Immediate. 5 September 2009. Mossel Bay Tourism

Another 2010 Success for Mossel Bay

The Paraguayan Football Federation has announced that it will base itself in the Garden Route’s quaint harbour town of Mossel Bay if it qualifies to play in next year’s FIFA World Cup.

This follows on an earlier announcement that the Eden Region’s Media Hub would be established in Mossel Bay.

Mossel Bay’s 2010 Coordinator, Louis Harris, said this week that the team would stay at The Point Hotel, and practice on the Extension 23 Pitch (which is presently being re-developed to international standards), whilst the media hub would be set up at the town’s other beach-side 4-star establishment, the Diaz Beach Hotel and Resort.

He said that, although the team has four matches to play during September and October, he had every confidence that it would qualify.

“We’re looking forward to welcoming Paraguay in 2010 because Mossel Bay is very focussed on building South-South connections,” said the town’s Mayor, Alderlady Marie Ferreira.

“As the saying goes, the 2010 World Cup will stretch ‘Beyond the 90 Minutes,’ and having the Paraguayans as our guests will form an important part of our long-term strategy to make friends and create opportunities amongst the peoples of South America,” she said.

“The presence of an international team of this calibre will have a significant impact on the economy of the town, and we’ve been told to expect an inflow of about 6,000 Paraguayan fans and supporters, who’ll want to be near their team during the World Cup.”

The Media Hub is expected to attract a massive contingent of reporters and journalists, as well as television- and radio crews from around the world, and, said Mr. Harris, this would create unprecedented interest in the Eden Region (the Garden Route and Klein Karoo).

From the moment it decided to bid for a team base camp, Mossel Bay positioned itself in the forefront of the road to 2010.

“We’re training a broad cross-section of the community – from hospitality staff, to police officers, traffic officers, and paramedics – to speak Spanish so that we’ll be able to welcome our guests properly, and to serve them in their home language,” said Mr. Harris.

“We’re expecting this to have a significant impact on the future of tourism to Mossel Bay, because we have identified the language barrier as the largest constraint to attracting tourism from South America.”

As the town’s official coordinator, Mr. Harris has presided over the establishment of a forum – which includes a wide range of organisations, from the Municipality to the taxi associations – to ensure the smooth running of the event.

Although many Soccer Federations have visited the Eden Region over the past few months, Mossel Bay is the first town to have entered into a formal agreement with one of them.

“We signed with Paraguay in June, and we have subsequently been lead to believe that Japan plans to base itself in George.

“This makes Mossel Bay and George the first towns in the Western Cape that have successfully concluded agreements with National Federations,” said Mr. Harris.

He explained that there was powerful competition amongst towns that had registered base camp hotels – because there were the fifty two potential venues for the thirty two teams that will be coming to the tournament.

“The Paraguayan team is currently placed third on the log, and we’ll be adopting them as ‘our’ team when they’re here – so of course we’re rooting for them to make it all the way to the top,” said Alderlady Ferreira.

ENDS 586 Words