South Africa targets over 1 lakh tourists from India this year

The Dollar Business Bureau

South Africa, one of the favoured countries for tourism in Africa, is expecting over 1 lakh tourists from India in 2017 with specialised packages to suit the requirement of the people from the country.

“We have been witnessing consistent growth in tourist inflow from India. Looking at the growth trend we are expecting to host 1,04,000 Indian tourists in 2017,” Hanneli Slabber, Country Manager, South Africa Tourism in India told PTI in Mumbai.

The number of visitors from India to South Africa had jumped by 21.7% to 95,377 during last year.

“We are looking for an exciting year ahead. We are focusing on enhancing our engagement with the travel agents and consumer outreach via outdoor media, digital, print and television,” she said.

“In January, around 6,300 Indian tourists visited South Africa and we are looking forward to very high figures during the ongoing holiday season - from now till the middle of June,” she added.

To tap the Indian market geographically, the South African Tourism plans for engaging potential tourists in tier II cities through an agent-specific programme called 'Learn South Africa', in which training will be imparted to travel agents in 17 cities of India during July this year, Slabber said.

“We have published information related to tourism and package offerings in 6 languages of India,” she added.

Demographically, we are also planning to target young Indian travellers given the fact that the country has a considerable proportion of young people aged between 18 to 35 years, Slabber said.

“We are also focussing on the MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Events) segment and also on younger solo globe-trotters from the country, she said.

With more than 3,129 products offerings, and more to included, South Africa has a variety of products to choose from, she added.

She further said that Indians spend a lot and rank in the top five in the segment.

“We find Indians love spending on experiences, food and shopping especially local handicrafts. In 2016, we saw the overall spends from India crossing 1.2 billion ZAR (South African currency) by the end of the third quarter,” she added.

India is a vital market for us and is placed on the 8th position amongst South Africa’s overseas source markets. The major source markets of South Africa are the UK and the US, followed by the Europe,” she said.