page_title: Mossel Bay
section_title: Tourism
hierarchical_section_title: Mossel Bay / Economy / Tourism
caption_attribution_description: English: Diaz Beach, Mossel Bay.
context_page_description: Mossel Bay is a harbour town of about 99,319 people on the Southern Cape of South Africa. It is in an important tourism and farming region of the Western Cape Province. Mossel Bay lies 400 kilometres east of the country's seat of parliament, Cape Town, and 400 km west of Port Elizabeth, the largest city in the Eastern Cape Province. The older parts of the city occupy the north-facing side of the Cape St Blaize Peninsula, whilst the newer suburbs straddle the Peninsula and have spread eastwards along the sandy shore of the Bay.
  The city's economy relied heavily on farming, fishing and its commercial harbour, until the 1969 discovery of natural offshore gas fields led to the development of the gas-to-liquids refinery operated by PetroSA. Tourism is another driver of Mossel Bay's economy.
context_section_description: Mossel Bay has a strong tourism economy.  The summer holiday season (from about mid-December to mid-January) is the busiest time of the year, and, in December 2010, the Municipality estimated that the town provided accommodation for between 50,000 and 60,000 holidaymakers per night during this period.
caption: Diaz Beach, Mossel Bay
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