SA Tourism bullish on India
Hanneli Slabber, Country Manager - India, South African Tourism, feels that India’s growth as one of the fastest-growing outbound markets in the world warrants heavy investment.
QWhat is your strategy for the coming year for India?
Over the years India has emerged as one of the fastest-growing outbound tourism market. According to our arrivals statistics of August 2016, India is the eighth long-haul tourism source market for South Africa. Keeping this in mind, we are investing heavily in this market and constantly adapting to the changing consumer interests and customising our offerings.
We will continue to focus on deepening our engagements with our trade partners by introducing innovative ideas to promote the destination and help them get a better understanding of the 60,000-plus registered products for Indian travellers.
QCan you share details of the activities that you have planned for the travel trade for 2016-17?
Earlier this year, we announced the launch of ‘Chalo South Africa’, a portal designed for our Indian travel partners to feature their best packages at no additional cost. We are currently running the ‘Fastest 50’ Campaign for our trade partners which will culminate with 20 of them winning an all-expense paid trip to South Africa in February 2017. Apart from that, our annual roadshow will be held in January 2017 where all our trade partners will get a chance to interact with South African service providers.
Q that have performed well? India’s major metros have been driving significant amount of tourist traffic to South Africa. What is however extremely encouraging to observe is the upward rise in numbers from Tier II and Tier III cities. Also, while leisure travel has traditionally been a trend centric to South and West India, we have seen this gaining popularity quite rapidly in the northern region as well.
We are currently running the ‘Fastest 50’ Campaign for our trade partners which will culminate with 20 of them winning an all-expense paid trip to South Africa in February 2017