Our member organisation in South Africa, WESSA, has organised a ceremony celebrating the new Blue Flag season, which officially started on 1 November this year. Sixty-two Blue Flags will be flying at 44 beaches, seven marinas and on 11 sustainable tourism boats around the country over the 2017/18 South African Blue Flag season.
There has been an increase of three Blue Flag boats from the previous season, and one additional marina.
During the ceremony, the Minister of Tourism, the Honourable Ms Tokozile Xasa, stated the importance of the Blue Flag programme for the local economy. By starting a partnership with WESSA in 2016, the Ministry is utilising the Expanded Public Works Programme to ensure jobs are created for young people in the tourism industry.
WESSA has successfully worked with numerous municipalities in South Africa and Blue Flag has been widely recognised as a programme that not only spreads a message of environmental education and management, it is also a programme that successfully increases a touristic and economic development which results in new jobs for the local communities.
