News

Visitor numbers to Karoo National Park saw good growth over the past festive season – with the Park experiencing in increase in gate arrivals of 47.4% over the period from mid-December to the end of the first week in January.

A total of 7 734 people enjoyed the park”s amenities between 16 December and 8 January, substantially more than the 5 246 over the same period the previous year – most of them being day visitors.

Park Manager, Nico van der Walt, says “We think the main reason for this spike in numbers is that we had many more day visitors over the extremely hot days in December, who came into the Park to enjoy the Bulkraal picnic site with its refreshing swimming pool. On busy days such as those, we had to cap the numbers at 100 people at a time so that the picnic site did not get too busy, and over the past festive season, we had to implement this more often than in previous years. This was probably also brought about by the fact that we had two public holidays during the weeks which we didn”t have two seasons ago.”

“We are very pleased with how the festive season went in Park, without any incidents despite being very busy. I am thankful for my wonderful team of staff members who were on duty over the time, who had to give up valuable time with family and friends to ensure that Park operations ran smoothly, and trust that now that everyone is back at work, they”ll enjoy some free time of their own,” concluded van der Walt.

Issued By

South African National Parks (SANParks) Frontier Region Communications

Enquiries

Fayroush Ludick
Regional Manager: Communications, SANParks
Tel: 082 888 0201 or 012 426 5371
E-mail: [email protected]