Much More Awareness Required

For those of you that thought the SWC 2010 was going to solve all your hospitality woes, think again and be proactive. The geographic spread does not appear to be improving despite claims that the World Cup increased awareness of other destinations within South Africa say operators and tourism suppliers dealing with South Africa.

Overseas visitors tend to stick to the better known destinations such as Kruger and Cape Town because of the long-haul nature of the destination for them says Douwe Baas, Director of Suid Afrika Reise in The Netherlands. “A holiday to South Africa for three weeks, inclusive of intercontinental flights, costs at least €3 000pp and that’s a lot of money. In fact too much money to take risks to go somewhere that has not been written about.”
Baas furthers that the problem may also lie with the trade who are afraid to sell the lesser known destinations due to the increased sales calls necessary to convert customers which in turn poses a financial risk to a company.

Vickie Baehner, an Independent Contractor for Travelstore Inc. based in the United States, says that she is not currently receiving requests from her clients for any alternative destinations in South Africa besides the mainstream ones. She furthers that she does not feel confident in selling other destinations because she does not feel her knowledge of the country is enough to sufficiently navigate around properly.
Baehner also says that the nature of American travel does not lend well to travelling to far out and less accessible destinations: “The difficulty for American travellers seems to be the breadth of the land, the high cost of transport and the time needed to reach more places. Americans do not take long holidays. This is a problem for travel planning no matter where they travel.”

Belgium-based Julien Roelants, the Managing Director of Travel Worldwide, says that he hasn’t seen any request for new destinations, but suggests that perhaps a solution would be to better market these other destinations to international markets and suggests the appearance of provincial tourism boards on travel shows on national television networks overseas. Roelants also says that travel documentaries on destinations other than the Kruger and the Cape would help greatly in raising awareness.
Baas says that his company is however being proactive about marketing other destinations such as the Karoo and Eastern Cape by preparing packages ahead of a travel fair to be held soon in Utrecht that will be available on Suid Afrika Reise’s website.

Source: SA Tourism Update