Asmita Mukherjee - Hyderabad At the recently held Africa’s Travel Indaba in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, Neliswa Nkani, Hub Head, MEISEA, South African Tourism (SAT), said that for 2023, they are targeting 30,000 Indian visitors in spite of the challenges arising from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“For 2023, we are targeting 30,000 Indian visitors. I think there is a sense of revenge travel happening around the world, and to achieve the numbers South Africa is well placed. Also, if we offer something which is new and exciting just like our host province KwaZulu-Natal, which has so much to offer, we can easily reach that number.
India is the only country in the world that doesn’t fear travel, no matter what obstruction you may put in front of Indian visitors. We are focusing on promoting South Africa through the eyes of Indian travellers, and to achieve that we are organising familiarisation tours with Indian media and travel agents.”
“The idea behind these familiarisation tours is to showcase the exceptionally new, dynamic, and authentic aspects of South Africa as a destination which are available at affordable rates. We also want to target new Destination Management Companies (DMCs) and medium-sized DMCs, and give them something fresh and new,” she added.
While sharing that India is the biggest consumer market for adventure sports in South Africa, she said that while the average traveller tries 1 to 4 adventure sports, the Indian tourists experiences 1 to 6 adventure sports during their stay. “We offer more than 3,000 activities and Indian visitors are the biggest consumers. We always ideate and introduce variety as we think that to maintain market relevancy, one should come up with products which are new and exciting, to target the new millennial buyers. They want hard-core activities and hard-core adventure.
To cater to these wants, we are promoting more adventure sports such as Oribi Gorge Swing in Durban and Shark Cage diving in KwaZulu-Natal. We would also be promoting lesser-known adventure sports like microlighting, skydiving, and ballooning over the Drakensberg Mountains, snorkelling with the sharks and destinations such as Sodwana bay – one of the most beautiful reefs in the world for Indian visitors,” she concluded.
asmita.mukherjee@saffronsynergies.in
