With recovery rates at 90% of pre-pandemic levels in South Africa’s 49 developing tourism source markets, South African Tourism has devised a strategy to take advantage of this ‘low hanging fruit’.

Speaking during a webinar hosted by SATSA, titled ‘Winning at Development Markets’, CEO David Frost said: “The growth rates that we are seeing in terms of the recovery out of the developing markets hold an enormous opportunity for us as a country, and for individual tourism companies.”

South African Tourism’s Marketing and Promotions Manager for the Middle East, Sadiq Dindar, who also oversees the Embassy Liaison portfolio which is made up of 49 developing markets outside SA Tourism’s core markets, said those markets had currently recovered to 90% of their pre-pandemic levels.

“That is the low hanging fruit,” he said.

Key source markets

ForwardKeys data shows strong demand in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which make up over two-thirds of bookings in the Middle East region.

In Europe, Russia is the largest non-core source market, however this is not expected to record high growth going forward due to its political situation. Poland, the Czech Republic, and Greece were showing strong signs of growth as well, while the region had recovered to 78% of its pre-pandemic airline seat capacity.

Africa, meanwhile, has the most markets expected to grow by double digits by 2030, said Dindar, with Mauritius and Guinea showing promising growth forecasts of 48.1% and 79% respectively between 2023 and 2025. Airlift capacity has also recovered to up to 85% of 2019 levels.

“Sometimes we forget how great the opportunities are right close to our borders,” he said.

‘Connect, collaborate and convert’

Dindar also outlined SAT’s strategy for the markets, which is focused on three core pillars: connect, collaborate and convert. It seeks to build partnerships with embassies, trade partners, airlines and provincial tourism authorities, and collaborate through initiatives like joint sales visits, activations, press trips, indabas and attendance at trade shows.

This strategy will inform the plans SAT puts into place to market the country as a destination in developing source markets.

However, he said work in some developing markets had been sporadic, with emphasis on one big event, and a lack of continuity resulting in lost traction.

He said the developing markets required a “business development approach” to build up a pipeline of demand in additional markets and mitigate the risk of depending on just 24 key source markets to reach South Africa’s objective of 21 million tourist arrivals by 2030.

“It takes time for the arrivals to come but there is great opportunity in these markets,” he said.

SMMEs, in particular, had the opportunity to establish themselves in a number of these markets as they were not currently being serviced by bigger players, said Dindar. Segments that have been performing particularly well are family, honeymoon, safari, action adventure, sport and student travel.

Non-core markets

Afzal Parambil, Regional Manager (Southern Africa) for Emirates said: “The biggest opportunity for South Africa as a destination, in the immediate term, will be from the non-core markets, not the traditional market.”

Looking at Emirates’ data, he said South Africa was recording double-digit growth from nearly all source markets, with the highest being from Europe and the Middle East.

“Pre-COVID, we used to carry over 300 000 passengers in a year, which represents almost 13% of total air travel, tourism arrivals into South Africa. It’s a big number and we believe these numbers can grow even further.”

But he said South Africa was not an easy sell, with questions of safety and accessibility being key for travellers.

However, there is ground to be gained by offering people the opportunity to visit multiple countries or combining activities.

He said he was already receiving queries from cricket-loving nations about the SA20 league, which has become very popular.

“They are not coming for the cricket, they are using cricket as an opportunity to come to South Africa – but they want to combine their holiday with it and there is an opportunity there,” said Parambil.