A new tourism corridor was unveiled by tourism ministers from Mozambique, Swaziland and South Africa on Saturday in a bid to stimulate economic growth and regional cooperation.

The new Lubombo Tourism Route was announced at a regional tourism conference held in South African coastal city of Durban.

A coastal route will take travelers from South Africa's Kruger National Park to the country's Greater St. Lucia Wetland Park via Mozambique.

Another route will take travelers along the Lubombo Mountains, leaving Swaziland to join the wetland park through to the Hluhluwe- Imfolozi Park.

A third route will go from the Kruger National Park through the Ezulwini Valley in Swaziland back to northern KwaZulu-Natal.

South African Tourism Minister Martinus van Schalkwyk said that visa requirements to travel between the three countries have been dropped.

Instead, he said, money will be put into the upgrading of roads and fences in the parks. The building of the new roads will also benefit local communities.

The signing of the Transfrontier Pledge means the three countries will have to be in tune with some pressing development challenges.

The priority among these are the construction of better roads, dropping of boundary fences and marketing the region as one of the most important tourism hotspots in the world.

South African Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka officially kicked off the four-day annual Tourism Indaba at the Durban International Convention Center.

She claimed that South Africa had already received 7 million tourists from all of the world.

This year's event is said to be bigger than all previous gatherings with overall attendance expected to reach 11,500.

SA Tourism CEO Moeketsi Mosola said since 2004 when tourism first eclipsed gold as South Africa's leading foreign currency earner, the industry had been commonly referred to as South Africa's "New Gold".

He said last year, the direct foreign spending from tourism showed a 20 percent increase - making tourism a greater contributor to the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) than mining and gold industries.

"It is also extremely exciting that tourism arrivals have breached the key psychological barrier with over 7.3 million international travelers visiting our country in 2005, as announced by Stats SA two weeks ago," he said.

Source: Xinhua