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The town of Phalaborwa will be abuzz with visitors and tourists from many parts of our country including South Africa’s neighbouring SADC countries, such as Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Mozambique.

Marula Festival has to date come to be an enormous brand to be reckoned with seven years after it was launched in 2007 with a mere 500 people. Last year, the event attracted more than 30 000 people from all over the country and beyond.

The event continues to be one of the flagship events drawing droves of people to Limpopo. The  Chief Executive Officer of Limpopo Tourism Agency (LTA), Mr. Nocks Seabi, said: “We are indeed very pleased to be associated with a successful brand like Marula Festival. The event is undoubtedly one major contributor of the Ba-Phalaborwa Municipality’s economy, while it significantly also contributes to the economy of the province. We are optimistic that the town of Phalaborwa with its capacity of 1349 beds will be fully booked due to this event and this is good news for the tourism and hospitality sector in Limpopo Province”.

The festival continues to benefit ordinary people and to date nine (9) Mukumbi Cooperatives from various District Municipalities producing Marula by-products with ninety (90) members have been registered. “We are confident that the festival will continue to grow in bounds given the partnership with other key stakeholders like Ba-Phalaborwa Municipality, Provincial Government and the private sector,” emphasized Seabi.

Phalaborwa has been chosen the permanent of home of the festival because of its tourism profile and proximity to other major tourist destinations including the world’s renowned Kruger National Park incorporated within the Greater Limpopo Transfrontier Park which includes Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

Seabi further said: “The partnership with Ziyaphenduka Promotions through Ba-Phalaborwa Municipality, has indeed brought in much needed improvement to the festival because for the first time in its history, there will be three different genres of music to cater for revelers with different tastes of music. We are making a clarion call to one and all to descend to Phalaborwa to celebrate the rich heritage of Marula with us.”

LTA will continue to leverage on the event and use it as a draw card for attracting tourists from other parts of the country and the world to visit Limpopo during this period. The festival commences on 01 until 09 March 2013 and the activities are lined up as follows: