Continued support for Knysna Karoo to Coast a step towards repairing the damage.

According to a Business Day newspaper article about the impact of fires on the Knysna economy, 2500 jobs are at risk as tourists cancel bookings. Western Cape Economic Opportunities MEC, Alan Winde said that the majority of Knysna’s tourist offering, some 4000 beds, remain intact. The July Knysna Oyster Festival, a major attraction on the Knysna tourist calendar, is currently underway as planned with Wesgro – the tourism and trade promotion agency for the Western Cape – allocating R100, 000 to promoting the Oyster Festival.
Another calendar fixture, the Karoo to Coast race which takes MTB riders the 100km off-road from Uniondale to Knysna via the Prince Alfred’s Pass is also set to continue, this year on Sunday, September 24.
Tru-Cape Fruit Marketing is one of the sponsors of the race which raises funds for the local Lions clubs that support Sightfirst, the South African Guide Dog Association and other urgent community needs, exacerbated by the devastating fires that gutted more than 600 structures in Knysna and Plettenberg Bay.
Conrad Fick, Marketing Director for Tru-Cape Fruit Marketing, the largest exporter of South African apples and pears, some of which are grown in the Langkloof region, near Knysna, says their decision to continue their sponsorship of the Karoo to Coast was an especially easy one this year: “The best thing we can do now is to encourage a full recovery of the economies and communities impacted by the fires and to support established races such as this one which is also an Official Premier Seeding Event of the 2018 Cape Town Cycle Tour. We must do what we can to promote that people enter the race and stay over in the region,” he says. “As we did in previous years we will also be rewarding cyclists with massages in the Tru-Cape tent.”
Fick says that Tru-Cape was pleased to be able to support the initial fire-fighting effort with a gift of over 8000 Tru-Cape apples and trusts that the Garden Route will prove as resilient as it is beautiful.

See Tru-Cape.com and facebook.com/TruCape.