Disha Shah Ghosh - Mumbai Keen to tap the Indian market with renewed vigour, South African Tourism (SAT) brought together a delegation of 42 exhibitors with 40% offering new products to India at its annual roadshow. This is because SAT has seen a 43% growth from India in 2023 with 79,774 arrivals compared to 55,506 in 2022. Moreover, SAT is keen to tap the millennials from India who are late bookers, and are indulging in hard adventure activities.
During 2019, SAT clocked in 95,621 arrivals from India, and the country still remains among the top three focus markets for the Rainbow Nation.
Addressing the press at the Mumbai leg of its four-city roadshow at ITC Grand Central, Neliswa Nkani – Hub Head – Middle East, India and Southeast Asia, South African Tourism, said, “These roadshows hosted over 12,000 meetings and generated more than 1,60,000 on the spot leads for South African Tourism, making the initiative a grand success.”
The roadshow was held in New Delhi, Ahmedabad and Jaipur (first time) as well.
Enumerating on the India numbers, she said, “Our target is to reach 100,000 arrivals from India. During 2023, we saw 45% traffic from leisure travellers, 46% MICE arrivals, out of which the Incentives movement contributed 21%. Incentive movement has emerged as the top MICE segment from India to travel to South Africa.”
She went on to explain that adventure travel is one of the top reasons for Indians to visit South Africa, and they indulge in extreme hard core activities. To make the value proposition more promising for Indian visitors, SAT has partnered with Ethiopian Airlines to offer competitive fares of INR 39,000, and connections from Mumbai to Johannesburg via Addis Ababa.
With regards to source markets, Mumbai (56%) continued to lead followed by New Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad.
