It was a Durban takeover this past weekend in Soweto as Durban Tourism came to the City of Gold to promote the coastal city in KZN as the festive season holiday destination.

Deputy head of Durban Tourism Winile Mntungwa told Sowetan that lockdown had severely affected tourism in the Banana City and that the Rediscover Durban campaign is aimed at focusing on and bringing back SA customers from inland to Durban.

"This is part of our Rediscover campaign which is to launch the city of Durban [as the place to be] as we approach the festive season. We are reaching out to different markets, especially Gauteng, which is our key source market. Durban is open for business and is the place to be," she said.

Mntungwa said they were taking advantage of lockdown's level 1 stage, which allows for interprovincial travel, to revive the economy. She said packages have also been designed to be more affordable to attract more people in the coming weeks.

"It's a key strategic intention to come to Gauteng because it is landlocked and Durban is a coastal city. What Durban has to offer people here would like to experience," she said.

Mntungwa said the city has been prepared to host tourists during the pandemic by being compliant with the health regulations.

"Durban is on its way to recovery as a tourism stakeholder since the time the Covid-19 pandemic happened. Through our product quality strategy we embarked on an intensive compliance of the protocols for Covid-19. From the airport to the different tourism attractions, the hotels anywhere you go the compliance is there.

"We are on the road to recovery and we do not want to go back to a point where tourism is affected because of high infection rates."

One of Durban's attractions, the Rickshaw Bus, paraded around Johannesburg before arriving on Vilakazi Street, Soweto's tourism hot-spot, on Saturday. The Rediscover Durban campaign will move to other upcountry regions of SA to promote the coastal city.