Hooray! South Africans will now pay less to visit Cape Point & Boulders

South Africans visiting Cape Point and Boulders penguin colony in the Western Cape will pay roughly half the fees they do now to enter from 1 November 2018‚ SANParks general manager Joep Stevens announced on Wednesday.

The 2017 conservation fee for Cape Point is R145 for an adult and will drop next November to R75 for a South African adult.

For Boulders‚ the fee will drop from R75 to R38 per South African adult.

International visitors will be charged double the 2017 rate for these two parks — paying conservation fees in line with iconic parks elsewhere in Africa.

Their fees will rise to R300 for Cape Point and R150 for Boulders under the new tariffs.

The change will align the conservation fees of these popular parks with the differential tariff structure implemented at the other 17 parks controlled by SANParks from 2003.

Six of the country’s 19 parks are profitable said Stevens‚ listing them as the Kruger National Park‚ Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park‚ Addo Elephant‚ Augrabies Falls‚ Tsitsikamma (Garden Route) and Table Mountain National Parks.

Foreign visitor revenue to the parks has grown 30% in the last six months‚ reflecting the national growth in international tourism‚ said Stevens.

He said that the high numbers of visitors to Cape Point and Boulders made it difficult to implement differential tariffs at the parks at the same time as the other parks.

From November 2018‚ visitors will be required to book permits online before they arrive to avoid delays at the gates. These parks already have queues on a daily basis.

Under the current differential conservation fees‚ international visitors pay four times more than residents and SADC visitors pay double the resident rate (a ratio of 4:2:1) in all parks except Cape Point and Boulders.

Stevens said South Africans were helping to fund the parks with their taxes‚ which supported grants to the parks.

Next November Capetonians will also benefit from lower fees at the following access points to Table Mountain National Park: Silvermine‚ Oudekraal‚ Newlands‚ Perdekloof and Tokai.

South African holidaymakers‚ who find the cost of tourist attractions in the Mother City steep in rands‚ can save up to 50% with Cape Town’s iVenture card.

What five of the top tourist attractions cost for one adult: Two Oceans Aquarium R165; City Sightseeing Cape Point day tour R530; Table Mountain Aerial Cableway R290; Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens R80; Zeitz MOCAA R180.

• The iVenture flexipass card offers five attractions for R1‚100 and has three more categories (unlimited attractions for five days‚ premium pass‚ unlimited premium pass) for different numbers of days. - TimesLIVE