ENTERING other fields or starting to do certain things, makes you open your eyes to something that you have not paid attention to, until you see the need to continue with it for the rest of your life.
This was the case with Ms. Mashoto Mokgethi, the head of the department responsible for promoting tourism in the country, under SA Tourism, a job she has been doing for seven years.
Ms Mokgethi (45) who was born in Atteridgeville, grew up in Hammanskraal in Pretoria, revealed that she now has 17 years of experience in tourism, a job she entered into to research and find plans to help the tourism industry grow in the country.
“I remember that I arrived more than 17 years ago, my job was to look and research what is going wrong and needs to be fixed in the tourism industry so that it does not fade away, and develop,” said Mokgethi.
He said:“However, it wasn’t long before I got completely into this industry until I ended up really loving it because of the different jobs I had the opportunity to do at SA Tourism since I’m where I am now.”
Now he said his main goal is to use the experience he has in this role, to continue to fulfill the vision of prioritizing different tourist destinations in all the provinces of South Africa.
“We also want our annual campaign called Travel Wise Mzansi to continue to grow, which aims to encourage visitors to keep themselves safe and ensure that there is no risk to their happiness.”
He said they intend to make tourism a stylish thing for everyone in this country.
“We don’t want it to be something that is done only at certain times of the year, but we want it to be a daily practice that will help our places to be highlighted to people from other countries,” he said.
He said he is very happy to see the tourism industry continue to show good signs of development and stability especially since it has been very difficult in the past years due to the different conditions that shook the industry.