While Indaba’s move away from South Africa’s Mother’s Day weekend has been welcomed by many, industry have warned that continuing to host the show in May misses the brochure cycle for the German market - South Africa’s third largest overseas source market.

Industry stakeholders also emphasise that the timing does not support the strategy to bring new players into the sector.

This year’s show, timed in mid-May after the show was rescheduled to accommodate the World Economic Forum, was not attended by some of the dominant wholesalers from Germany, including Detour, and ATC. Next year’s show, rebranded Africa’s Tourism Indaba, takes place from May 8-10.

Margie Whitehouse, Chief Marketing Officer, SA Tourism points out that Africa’s Travel Indaba has historically been in the 19th week of the year. “We would like to accommodate all markets, but the international events and exhibitions calendar is full. Germany is a core market for us and our marketing investment and work there is in full force and we are in partnership with members of trade to promote South African throughout the year, beyond trade show platforms.”

However, both Brigitte Henze, Product Manager Southern Africa at Dertour and Andre Thomas, Product Manager at FTI, say the timing does not work for the German market, particularly because brochures are printed in May, so new product discovered at the show, cannot be included in brochures. Thomas adds that he hopes that the May date has not been set for the next five years.

“For me as a contracting person, the perfect timing would be November or December,” says Henze. She adds that this is when the search for new products takes place.

Thomas says that if South African Tourism is supposed to be spreading tourism to include small businesses, these businesses are on the “back foot” because Indaba is never in sync with the buying schedule. “I can keep it in mind for next year, but that is not realistic.”

Both Satsa CEO David Frost and Tourvest Destination Management CEO, Martin Wiest, argue that fitting the show within the brochure cycle is critical to the success of Indaba. Wiest adds that significant overseas markets including not only Germany, but Switzerland, the UK and Italy have similar brochure cycles. For this reason he says, most of the wholesale trade in these markets need to complete contracting in mid-April. He adds that contracting and brochuring has been brought forward over the years, but Indaba dates haven’t changed to accommodate this.

Frost points out that SA Tourism has been hosting de-briefs on Indaba since he started heading up Satsa nearly four years ago. He says the trade has consistently called for the show to take place earlier in the year to align it with the brochure cycle.