Table Mountain soars to No 5
2009-06-09 14:08
Cape Town - Table Mountain climbed to number five in the New7Wonders of Nature global rankings on Monday, rocketing 24 places from its previous position of 29 last week. It is now officially ahead of legendary mountains such as Mount Everest, K2 Mountain and Mount Kilimanjaro.
The New7Wonders of Nature campaign is a contemporary effort to create a list of seven natural wonders chosen by people through a global poll, and hosted by the Swiss-based non-profit New7Wonders Foundation.
Table Mountain needs to be ranked in the top 11 of its group - mountains and volcanoes, which has 36 fellow nominees - to qualify for the next round. Table Mountain is currently ranked five out of 36. Other categories include seascapes, lakes, islands, ice formations, waterfalls and forests.
This follows an Election Day event last week which generated high-saturation media coverage across national TV, radio, print and online media channels.
"We are really excited that our campaign is capturing the imagination of the SA public. Now we need to sustain interest in order to keep our rankings high until July 7,"said Sabine Lehmann, CEO of Table Mountain Aerial Cableway who is championing Table Mountain’s cause.
Increase in tourism
South Africa is set to see a massive increase in tourism if its beloved Table Mountain is named one of the New7Wonders of Nature.
The country of Jordan reported a visitor increase of more than 100% to the ancient ruins of Petra, after it was declared a New7Wonder of the World in July 2007. Visits to Peru’s Machu Picchu soared by 70% and the value of real estate in the area doubled.
The New7Wonders Foundation in Zurich, Switzerland announced in January 2009 that Table Mountain was one of 261 magnificent natural sites from 222 countries to have made it through to the second round in this global race to name the New7Wonders of Nature.
Other iconic African natural sites to come through the first round include the Kalahari Desert, the Great Rift Valley, the Avenue of Baobabs, Lake Tanganyika, the Kafue National Park and Victoria Falls.
The New7Wonders of Nature will be determined by votes from the public and fans can show their support for the Mother City’s majestic mountain by casting their vote here.
Voting to select the top 77 sites (11 per category) runs until July 7. Thereafter a panel of experts will select the 21 finalists (3 per category) - these will be announced on July 21 when the third and final phase of voting will begin.
The official New7Wonders of Nature will be revealed in 2011.
Over 100 million votes were cast in 2007’s first-ever global election for the New7Wonders of the world. More than 1 billion votes are forecast in this 2nd global election.