The World Cup brings even more global visitors to Maropeng

July 21, 2010

Maropeng is celebrating having drawn a record number of people from around the world to the birthplace of our species, the Cradle of Humankind, during the 2010 FIFA World Cup™.

Visitor numbers to Maropeng and the Sterkfontein Caves soared between June 11 and July 11 this year, when compared to the same period last. Almost half of the people who streamed into Maropeng during the tournament were from outside of South Africa; in fact, they came from a staggering 42 countries between them.

South Africans remain highly interested in the origins of our species, accounting for 53% of the total numbers recorded in the World Cup window, but almost every second person who came to Maropeng in June and July was a foreigner. Some 16% of the people who entered the Maropeng Visitor Centre were from the US; together, Mexico, Canada, the UK, Australia and Argentina accounted for another 16%.

Maropeng tour guide Adelaide Motsanani says she had a lot of fun with visitors from Mexico: “The Mexicans were so interesting! They have a chant that they do, it sounds like ‘Aaaaaiiiii-pluto!’ Every time we would wait for them to do it and join in.”

Motsanani says some visitors from India changed her perception of the cobras that slither around Maropeng: “There was a group of Indians, and they asked me about the signs that say ‘beware of snakes’. They told me that, in India, when you see a cobra and it picks up its head, it’s good luck. For us [in South Africa], it means danger.”

“If it can [mean good luck] for Indians, maybe it’s not that bad!” she laughs. “Maybe it’s good luck for everyone.”

Recent statistics show there was a jump of over 50% in the number of adult visitors to both Maropeng and Sterkfontein during the competition and the figures clearly show the impact of the World Cup on winter tourism numbers. The high number of American visitors corresponds to FIFA’s announcement before the start of the tournament that US citizens had bought the most World Cup tickets after South Africans.

Maropeng’s General Manager Erica Saunders says, “We are very pleased with the interest that tourists, particularly tourists from outside of South Africa, have shown in Maropeng and the various tourist attractions within the facility. We are working hard to ensure that we build on the momentum that the World Cup has created.

“We believe that the experiences that our international guests had while visiting several of our facilities here at Maropeng will fuel the word-of-mouth engine when they return to their countries. We are confident that we will continue to experience a surge in the number of guests to our facilities in the not too distant future.”

 

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