trademark issues for elephant coast

The more I speak to people the more I come to realise that the Elephant Coast has a lot of problems as far as marketing goes. These problems are due to the fact that all the role players are wroking from seperate platforms, and that the platforms that are in place are viewed by others as personal property of individuals and not as a marketing organisation as it should be.

We have 5 local municipalities as listed here
1) Mtubatuba
2) Hlabisa
3) Jozini
4) Umhlabuyalingana
5) Big 5 Fasle bay

then we have a variety of bigger players namely

1) Umkhanyakude District Municipality,
2) the IWPA (iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority)
3) KZN tourism
4) the Elephant Coast tourism association
5) the maputuland Tourism association

Then there is also the smaller players who have marketing strategies for their own associations as well as many small businesses that each run their own private marketing campains.

Then there are IT companies who want to market their services such as My own company Info4u CC which have their own strategies as well.

It thus comes as no surprise that an individual company / association has laid claim to the Umkhanyakude district municipality brand Name of "The Elephant Coast" as their personal property. Unfortunately for them (Maputuland Tourism Association) the name Elephant Coast is in such common use, that it is now deemed to be the local name of the area between Mapelane and Kozi Bay and include the inland areas up to the western boundary of the Hlabisa Local m unicipality.

This means that they do not have the legal right to claim the name as a trade mark, and thus have no right to claim the domain www.elephantcoast.co.za as their own.

The Maputuland Tourism association how ever seems to be of the opinion that they actually own the trade mark "Elepahant Coast" and have taken legal and other not so pleasant steps to aquire this domain www.elephantcoast.co.za for them selves.

This problem needs to be addressed urgently from district level so as to avoid the current infghting of the many interest groups of the Elephant Coast tourism region, as visitors to the Elephant Coast pick up on these small nuances and this makes their stay along the Elephant Coast of KZN South Africa a little uncomfortablke or unpleasant and rubs off on their word of mouth advertising for our region when they get home.

The different user groups such as the recreational beach users and the upper market international tourism sector also have issues with each other due to the inability of the Elephant Coast residents to come arround a common table and sort out their polictical and personal differeances in a controlled and peacful environment where each sector can have an input and a committee or tribunal can take a decision that will best suit the whole of the Elephant Coast.

This is part of the probl;em which the IWPA (iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority) have in ther kozi bay region of the Elephant Cioast with the local residents being up in arms and forcefully evicted from their own property, where thay have developed in a haphazard style with no municipal planning or approvals from any relevant authority.

What to do and which way to move?

sugestions and ideas on how to get this region working in a co-operative style would be appreciated by many. I will be using the many laws and regulations that have been put in place, and ensuring that the bigger roleplayers are not bullying the smaller players due to their ignorance of the law.

The Maputuland Tourism Association and the iSimangaliso wetland park Authority will not like this, but it needs to be done so that we can get some peace and co-operation between the many fragmented parties who each have a very large stake in the tourism associated with the elephant Coast of KZN South Africa.

iSimangaliso birding Route needs to work closely with all these role players who have an interest and stake in the Elephant Coast Tourism industry, and thus having a bad working relationship with any one of these role players will be a setback for us. This does not how ever mean that we must say "YES SIR, NO SIR THREE BAGS FULL SIR" but rather that we must iron out our differences and find a way to work colectively as we have a common customer base.

The common customer base is the toursits who visit our establishments and attractions as well as making use of our collective services of all the role players within the Elephant Coast tourism industry should be our collectyive concer.

Question is how do we achieve this? any ideas!