South African travel destinations and accommodation have exhibited their goods at the International Tourism Bourse in Berlin in an effort to attract more visitors from Europe.

The event is the world's biggest travel trade show and has attracted more than 11 000 exhibitors. Tour operators, carriers, hotels and other service providers are using the opportunity to exchange ideas. Some of them say they are encouraged by the response they have received over the past three days.

Meanwhile, some of South Africa's neighbouring countries are capitalising on the FIFA World Cup to promote their own tourism destinations.

"Since there will be some other matches in Bloemfontein -  we are taking advantage with our Bloemfontein tour operators and our local tour operators to shuttle people to come into Lesotho, so that they can experience something beautiful out of South Africa. For instance, the Japanese will be playing Cameroon in Bloemfontein - so they will be shuttled into Lesotho. That is really going to boost the economy of our country," says Dimpho Rakhetla of the Lesotho Tourism Development Corporation.

Last month, President Jacob Zuma said tourism has a huge potential to create jobs after the devastating recession that spared no one. He was addressing the two day international summit on tourism, sports and mega-events in Sandton.