Addo Elephant Park

Addo Elephant National Park experienced a phenomenal December at the end of last year – with an increase of 18 percent in visitors from December 2012.

Total visitors for December increased from 22 600 in 2012 to 26 680 in 2013 – a whopping  4 080 more people.  This means that the Park averaged 860 tourists per day.  The increase in visitors also meant an increase in activities – with the Park’s game drives section reporting a 28.8 percent increase in income.

Not to forget the increasingly popular southern section at Colchester, Camp Matyholweni’s figures show an occupancy increase of eight percent.

Park Manager, Norman Johnson, said, “I would like to thank all the staff who worked over the festive season – those in our Tourism, Technical, Conservation and Administration Departments.  It is thanks to them that the Park continued to deliver the good quality service upon which SANParks prides itself”.

“A special word of thanks also needs to go our visitors for choosing Addo as their destination of choice.  Barring one or two incidents, most of our guests exhibited sterling behaviour by adhering to the park rules,” concluded Johnson.

South African National Parks (SANParks) supported by First National Bank (FNB) recognised deserving Parks and staff members at their 9th annual Kudu Awards ceremony held at the CSIR Convention Centre in Pretoria earlier this month.

Addo Elephant National Park’s Main Camp won the Chief Executive’s Award for the Best Performing Camp in the 2012/2013 Financial Year. Some of their achievements during this time were an increase in visitors of 15.7% from 102 566 to 121 724, a bed occupancy of 69.3% – the highest of all national parks and a camping occupancy of 74.4% – also the highest of all national parks. A total of 26 907 game drives were sold, which was the highest activities sold per 100 overnight guests of all national parks. These are just a few of the camp’s accomplishments over the 2012/2013, proving that they were, indeed, worthy winners.

All had been winners in the organisation’s regional awards ceremony in June this year, and so qualified to be entered into the prestigious national awards.

SANParks CEO, Dr David Mabunda, said “The Chief Executive Awards is an important initiative that recognises internal stakeholders for efforts in making South African National Parks the custodian of choice for the national parks system”.