After losing an estimated R400m in incentive travel business to other destinations between 2010 and 2011, South Africa is looking forward to a busy 2013 with large groups already expressing interest and new markets such as Eastern Europe showing promise, says Tes Proos, President, South African Chapter of the Society of Incentive Travel Executives (Site).

An informal survey conducted by the SA Chapter last year and covering the period September 2010 to August 2011, indicated that destination management companies (DMCs) and venues lost business largely due to high flight and hotel prices. “Contracts were mostly awarded to popular Asian destinations such as Thailand, as well as the Middle East and Turkey. Clients tend to travel closer to home,” explains Proos.

“Ninety percent of the time clients turn down SA citing cost and almost never due to safety risks. For countries such as the USA time and distance could also be an issue.” Site plans to take up the matter with SAA and other airlines flying from SA’s traditional incentive markets, such as BA, Virgin Atlantic, Lufthansa and KLM.

“While incentive travel has traditionally been regarded as part of leisure travel, Site believes it should be promoted more as part of business tourism. In addition to international business tourism trade shows, we’d like to see roadshows and workshops focusing specifically on incentives, especially in emerging markets.”

Proos identified Eastern Europe and BRICS countries such as Russia, China and India as markets with huge incentive potential. “However, DMCs first need to get acquainted with these markets and gain their trust before they start doing business.” In comparison to the normal incentive group size of 50 to 100, China and India also send much larger groups of between 150 and 300, which could go up to 600.

Other trends include a lead time decline from a year to between three and six months, length-of-stay shrinkage from six to four nights, and an average incentive spend decrease from between R15 000 and R25 000 to between R12 500 and R15 000 per person.

Site’s annual countrywide hospitality workshops for the incentive industry and its suppliers start in Cape Town next month. “It’s important that our suppliers know that incentive groups require that special touch, top quality without exception and should never be rushed – gauge your guests. Guides should act as an extension of the DMC and become part of the incentive group,” Proos concludes.

Riana Geldenhuys