South African Tourism to promote country beyond safaris

With the objective to promote their not-so-conventional tourism offerings and increase footfalls, South African Tourism (SAT) is looking to promote the country beyond safaris, said Hanneli Slabber, Country Manager – India, South African Tourism, during the annual roadshow that started off from Mumbai yesterday. “When people think of South Africa, only ‘safaris’ come to their mind. The country has much more to offer for offering new and different experiences for the travellers. We are looking at showcasing the country’s offerings for Adventure Tourism like bungee jumping, sky diving, shark cage diving, whale watching, hot air balloon rides, quad biking, turtle hatching, and sandboarding. Besides the regular wine tours and wine-tasting events, we offer such tours specifically for children. In addition, we are promoting cities beyond Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Durban, like Oudtshoorn, Hermanus, Franschhoek, and Dullstroom.”

SAT  lead the 63-member South African delegation Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru  and New Delhi.

Speaking about SAT’s plans for this year, Slabber said, “We will launch a television campaign in the next two weeks, an online campaign by mid this month, and have already started with SAT hoardings and billboards in vernacular medium. We are running huge sales campaigns till April, and from May-August, we will focus on travel trade activities like Learn SA. We have also added a module to our SA Specialist training programme that gives information on food options and adventure activities in South Africa. In addition, we will organise co-branding activities with the Indian travel trade and conduct Familiarisation trips, which according to us are the best way to educate the trade. We will also run ‘advance buying campaign’ with airlines to get travellers to book their travel in advance. We will promote the same in India as well.”

Talking about the Indian travel trends, Slabber said, “We have observed that Indians travel throughout the year and do not restrict their travel to summers. Same-sex travel (in groups) is gaining popularity, besides there is a rising trend of family travel. The average length of stay for MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences/Conventions, Exhibitions) travellers is four nights, while for leisure travellers it is 12 nights. Fifty per cent of the travellers to South Africa are repeat travellers.”

SAT is aiming to achieve the target of drawing half-a-million travellers from the Indian market by 2020 and making India the biggest source market for South African tourism, Slabber informed. In order to sustain their growth and extend their reach to the target audience in the country, the tourism board will continue to explore newer markets and traveller segments and leverage on the available opportunities, she added.

“India is the third largest source market for South Africa from Asia, after China and Australia. India is a fast-emerging strategic growth market for outbound travel and with the evolving outlook and preferences of Indian travellers, the South African tourism industry is looking to further explore the Indian market with substantial marketing budgets and bespoke campaigns to reach out to the right consumer segments,” Slabber stated.