Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images(LONDON) — Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, are heading to Africa.
The royals and new parents to son Archie will visit South Africa this fall.
Nigel Casey, the British High Commissioner to South Africa, confirmed Harry and Meghan’s visit Wednesday while delivering remarks at a reception in Pretoria, South Africa, for Queen Elizabeth II’s birthday.
“That’s great news for us,” Casey said. “I predict it’s also good news for the South African economy because I predict a hat and frock-buying frenzy … which could well restore economic growth all on its own.”
Casey’s comments are the first details revealed publicly about Harry and Meghan’s long-rumored plan to return to Africa on an official visit.
Buckingham Palace has not released any details of the future trip. Meghan gave birth to the couple’s first child on May 6 and has been on maternity leave since then.
Royah Nikkhah, royal correspondent for The Sunday Times, told Good Morning America in April that the couple was planning to take Archie with them to Africa.
“As it stands the plan is that Harry and Meghan and their newborn baby, in probably about six months, will take a trip to Africa and tour several countries in Africa, and around October time probably visit two or three different Commonwealth nations, which are of course the nations in Africa that have a close relationship with the U.K.,” Nikkhah said in April.
“The countries that they will be going to haven’t been decided yet. That’s a discussion that is ongoing between the government and some of the host nations who want to have Harry and Meghan,” she added. “The tour will be on behalf of the government but very likely to be some countries that Harry and Meghan have a close connection with.”
If Archie comes with Harry and Meghan, he will be one of the youngest royals to travel on an official trip overseas.
Meghan, 37, was named in March as vice president of the Queen’s Commonwealth Trust, an organization that supports and connects young leaders in the Commonwealth, which includes countries in Africa. Harry, 34, was named Commonwealth Youth Ambassador last year by Queen Elizabeth.
Africa is also close to both Harry and Meghan’s hearts.
It’s where Harry whisked Meghan away a few weeks after the couple’s first date in 2017.
“I managed to persuade her to come and join me in Botswana and we camped out with each other under the stars,” Harry said in a post-engagement interview last year. “She came and joined me for five days out there, which was absolutely fantastic, so then we were really by ourselves, which I think was crucial to me to make sure we had a chance to get to know each other.”
Harry, who established his charity, Sentebale, in the African country of Lesotho in 2006, also included a piece of Botswana in Meghan’s engagement ring. The main stone in Meghan’s ring is sourced from Botswana, while the diamonds surrounding it are from the jewelry collection of Harry’s mother, the late Princess Diana.
Harry has also said in previous interviews that Botswana will always have sentimental value to him because Africa is where he and Prince Charles and Prince William went to “get away from it all” after Diana’s death in 1997.
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