Adventure, flash-packing and opportunities to interact with locals were just a few of the themes that came out of the recent inaugural South African Tourism Nordic roadshow, which saw 20 South African suppliers meeting with members of the Nordic travel trade.
Abby Swartz, Marketing and Promotions Manager: Nordics Region for SAT said the shows in all four countries had been very well attended, with 42 agents recorded in Denmark, 24 in Norway, 38 in Sweden and 22 in Finland.
“We know that, from all four of these countries, safaris, Cape Town and the Garden Route are widely sold and the greatest awareness exists for these experiences, but an interesting outcome observed is that consumers want experiences that allow them to interact with locals but want these experiences to take place in areas that are already known to them,” she said.
Swartz said Norway’s younger travel segment were interested in what was known as ‘flash-packing’, which is luxury backpacking. The insight was provided by Kilroy, a provider of travel and educational services based in Copenhagen, which has sold 1 364 hotel nights in SA so far this year from Norway alone, while Finnish agents showed a keen interest in the adventure offerings that were present on the roadshow.
“While the trade sells to an age segment of, on average, 35 to 60 years, there is an opportunity to target a younger segment while defending the high-end, luxury-seeking older segments we currently get,” added Swartz.
She said while the region was seeing in increase in online travel bookings, most of SA was still sold via the traditional trade due to the limited destination knowledge and awareness among consumers.
Rune Engstrøm from Destination Africa, attended the roadshow in Oslo and said: “SA has great potential in the Nordic market. Every year one million travellers from the Nordic countries go to Thailand, but only around 100 000 to SA.” He said the region had several direct flights to Thailand due to demand. “I see no reason why this could not apply to SA with enough marketing.”
Collin Thaver, Managing Director of Southern Africa 360 Luxury Holidays, said having a more prominent presence as a destination in the Nordic market had been something the industry had been hoping would happen for a number of years.
“The market is very responsive as is evidenced by the turnout at each of the workshops.” He commended SAT’s product selection, which included several ‘hidden gems’ or SMMEs.
Swartz added that the roadshow provided insight to key differences that required SAT to properly localise and tweak messaging then target the consumer in each of the four countries.
SAT will conduct consumer insight activator immersion in the market in January, 2018, a 26-week process that will enable SAT to know exactly which consumers they are targeting in the region, as well as the segments yielding the most potential to travel.
