Buffalo City metropolitan tourism infrastructure master plan (heritage)

Abstract

In Buffalo City in the Eastern Cape, where tourism is declining, the Buffalo City Development Agency (BCMDA) engaged the HSRC's Place-making and Development team to assist them with an urgent assessment of the heritage sector in the city, which could be fed into the new municipal tourism master plan. As with the university-city project that had been jointly undertaken by the council and the agency, HSRC's place-making team held extensive discussions before deciding on the shape that the assignment should take. It was agreed that the new project, which began in February 2019 and is ongoing, should both review the sector and make a clear contribution to assisting the city in finding its own 'unique' identity, including by recommending actions that should be taken to strengthen the municipality's 'soft' knowledge infrastructure and 'hard' physical infrastructure in support of the sector.