Kruger National gears up for bumper festive season

Kruger National Park (KNP) authorities say there will be zero tolerance to transgressors this festive season. This after they have beefed up security to ensure that visitors adhere to the rules of the park.

The park is expecting more than 270 000 visitors during this festive season period.

Authorities say it’s all systems go with their readiness for the festive season.

Cashless system

Among other things, they have recently rolled out a cashless system in some of the gates.

In the previous festive season period, the park received 259 000 visitors.

Skukuza Camp Hospitality Services Manager, Grant Grootboom advised day visitors to book on time as gate quotas will be in place this festive season.

“It’s a system that we have introduced in KNP it runs throughout the year. However, during long weekends and school holidays and the festive period, there’s a huge influx of people to our national park. Therefore, we need to control the numbers so that the park isn’t overcrowded, hence the introduction of the gate quotas at our various gates. We have also recently introduced a cashless system at some of our gates in the southern part of the park. Gates such as Malan, Kruger Gate, Numbi, etc. and also at our fuel station. That is also to mitigate the risk of carrying cash and to provide our visitors with an environment where they can quickly enter, use a card, pay and be in the park.”

Park rules

Non-compliance to the park’s rules such as adhering to speed limit remains a major challenge.

Protection Services Manager Phindile Makhuvele urged visitors to also ensure that their vehicles have proper registration licenses.

“We have also taken a decision as an organisation that vehicles with no registration numbers will not be allowed in KNP. That was effective from the first for different reasons. We have seen increase during the holidays with stolen vehicles that are transported through Kruger National Park to Mozambique. Some vehicles cannot be identified by our cameras because of reasons that are known to the drivers why they move the number plate. Only the vehicles that are new and having a temporary license attached to the vehicles they will be allowed in the park if the license is valid.”