| OCR Text |
Show " .,.,... ! j S- r - .; L i.-'-v::... f sl ':'.-' ' nuiie rhino seen In the Umfolozi game reserve In Zululand Wh Atrica. Wnd game ana omer attractions are drawing an increasing number of tourists from the USA (So. African Tourist Corp. Photo) Moab Couple Enjoyed Africa Tour A Moab couple, Mr. and Mrs. Mitch Williams, found Southern Africa peaceful, beautiful and amazingly varied, var-ied, they reported on their return from a 14-day flying tour of the area. The Williams, owners of Tag-A-Long Tours, 452 N. Main St., Moab, visited the Republic of South Africa and Rhodesia with a group of 30 Utah, Colorado and Wyoming travel agents. The travelers, members of the American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA), made the trip as their annual out-of-country tour. "Southern Africa offers a great variety of attractions," Mitch said. "There are hundreds hun-dreds of miles of sandy beaches, rugged mountains, diamond and gold mines, colorful tribal dancing, wild animals in their natural habitat, reasonable accommodations, accommo-dations, and, above all. friendly, hospitable people." Mary Williams added that it is now late spring in Southern Africa and the area is a blaze of color-though flowers bloom the year around. Mitch said inexpensive luxury hotels and gourmet restaurants in both South Africa and Rhodesia make the area a tourist bargain. The travel agents visited the Kruger and Wankie game reserves, Victoria Falls, and the cities of Johannesburg, Pretoria, Capetown, Durban and Salisbury. They found hotel rates in Southern Africa only about half to two-thirds those of Europe, North and South America. For example, a single room with bath at the Holiday Inn in Durban, on the warm Indian ocean, costs about $15 a night during the peak of the tourist season. At Kruger park, where the travel agents saw everything from lions to elephants, a thatched roof, cement walled kraal (correct), sleeping four to six, costs only $14 to $16 a night per party, complete with bath and kitchen. An 11-day ecology expedition expedi-tion into the homelands of ihe bushmen' costs around $470 a head, and a flying five-day trip to hunt big game on the private Mala Mala reserve costs $600 apiece. On the other hand, one can choose an inexpensive tenting safari, rent a camper at $15 to $16 a day or a motor home, sleeping six and including 600 free miles at $300 a week. Tourist visits to South Africa are down a little since the June riots in the one-million population popula-tion Soweto black housing area near Johannesburg. They're off 40 percent in Rhodesia, where guerillas have been operating along the borders with Mozambique and Zambia. Zam-bia. However, the travel agents didn't see any of this. They said they felt as safe as in Honolulu. Tourist visits to South Africa have been increasing dramatically dramati-cally the past 10 years. Visits from Europe are up from 56,000 to 282,000 from the U.S. up from 12,000 to 49,000, from Japan from none to 8,000, and from other African countries up from 181,000 to 327,000. |
