Neliswa Nkani
How was 2022 for South African Tourism in India?
How has this year been so far? The year 2022 was good. We really outperformed ourselves in terms of our targets, we exceeded our targets. For 2023, we are on an 82 pc increase on the arrivals. Again, we have surpassed this year’s target. And we are hoping to end on a high as close as possible towards the pre-pandemic peak arrivals for 2019. What are we going to do differently this year? We are going to dial up the trade, going back to basics, we are going to show new products, new regions. But I think the most important thing is we are going to be playing in Tier II and Tier III cities.
How is the Indian market for South Africa changing and what are the new trends that you have been witnessing?
India is such a diverse nation, you can never say this year, next month or this week. What we have seen is an increase in High Networth Individuals (HNIs), an increase in Free Independent Travellers (FITs), a huge increase in millennials but the most interesting thing is that the HNIs are looking for something different. We have seen an upsurge in KwaZulu Natal, Durban, or Mpumalanga, and suddenly there’s an increase of inter-Africa travel between South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Victoria Falls. And so South Africa is your hold. They go for one or two days around the African continent, but then they come into South Africa and there they spend longer time, more days and adventure is the catalyst, the drawcard for the Indian travellers because they are the biggest consumers of adventure in our country.
There has been an increase in shark-diving, in particularly in KwaZulu Natal, as has been an increase in lots of different adventure such as skydiving in the Oribi Gorge
What is the number of Indian travellers that you are receiving right now?
We are sitting on more than 47,000 travellers at the moment. Last year, we ended up just under 56,000. I expect that we will be sitting at about 90,000 travellers between now and the end of the year.
What is your objective for this year?
So right now, we want to just capacitate the industry, increase awareness of South Africa, increase engagement and visibility, so we chose Delhi. Why Delhi? Because, one, we have just come out of the G20, tourism is a catalyst for social cohesion. And we thought if Delhi has been the host of the G20 summit, we could not have asked for a better place than to be in Delhi. But most important is to capacitate the trade. We invited people from all around Delhi so that we can make sure that we have the capacity to engage people in showcasing South Africa.
Which are key attractions in South Africa for Indian travellers?
Definitely wildlife and definitely adventure. There has been an increase in shark-diving, in particularly in KwaZulu Natal, as has been an increase in lots of different adventure such as skydiving in the Oribi Gorge. I mean every time somebody goes to the Oribi Gorge and we host, it has been interesting. And the people and the food has been an incredible offering. We have worked very closely with the hotels and the restaurants to make sure that there’s a diverse offering of food and also that is palatable for the Indian consumer.
Is there any particular segment that you are targeting from the Indian market?
This year has been quite an interesting one. We received over 3,500 passengers for MICE and we had some of the big names come through from insurance, from banking and other sectors. Mahindra brought us over 800 passengers just for South Africa who were welcomed by the Deputy Minister of Tourism at one of the events. So, the incentive travel has really increased and we are going to continue to push that through our collaboration directly with corporates because it fulfills the requirements and demand and pushes the travellers into the tour operators’ offices and bookings for that.
