The Tourism Business Council of South Africa (TBCSA) has revealed impressive figures that highlight the effectiveness of its Trevor Noah destination marketing campaign and provide a successful case study for the use of global celebrities to promote tourism. A partnership between the TBCSA, TOMSA and South African Tourism, the packaged video adverts achieved worldwide acclaim during their run between November 2023 and August 2024.
The “Trevor Noah Tourism Campaign for SA” achieved an overall reach of 231 million people in nine monitored tourism source markets, the association’s CEO Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa said at the TBCSA Tourism Leadership Conference in Sun City on September 18-19. Social media engagement in those markets hit 485 million impressions.
“The reach extends much further than that as this was only in the nine markets we tracked,” Tshivhengwa emphasised.
He said the return on investment in the multi-award winning campaign equated to R8 (€0.4) for every R1 (€0.05) spent.
The campaign was conceived with the aim of helping South Africa reach its target of 15.6 million international tourist arrivals by 2030. The TBCSA harnessed a mix of social media, digital advertisements, influencer collaboration and other online media to package the video in various forms. Noah gave a comedic but impactful portrayal of the country’s diverse range of attractions, landmarks, wildlife and cityscapes across well-known and off-the-beaten track locations.
“We made a big decision to implement this campaign for one reason and one reason only – we have to make sure that South Africa remains alive, remains competitive and remains top of mind everywhere in the world so that we can achieve the growth we want to see,” said Tshivhengwa.
Supporting safety, air access and youth
Tshivhengwa elaborated on further successes achieved by the TBCSA and funded by the TOMSA levy – a 1% levy charged to tourists for their use of travel and tourism services in South Africa.
These include safety and security enhancements in crime hotspots close to the Kruger National Park, funding of the Cape Town and Gauteng Air Access projects and support for the Cape Town Tourism SMME programme. Tshivhengwa said the TBCSA would expand its support this year to include safety and security improvements in Durban and Gqeberha (formerly Port Elizabeth).
The TBCSA has played an active role in lobbying for visa access, funding research by Genesis Analytics to assess key source markets and efficient implementation of e-visas and waivers for these markets. Tshivhengwa said the final report of the research has been completed and will soon be delivered to the Presidency for review.
The TBCSA has also played a leading role in the Youth4Tourism programme run in collaboration with the non-profit, private sector-led Youth Employment Service (YES). Since establishment at the start of 2021, YES has seen over 1 700 companies sign up to provide 12-month quality work experiences for unemployed young people, creating around 156 000 jobs.
Youth4Tourism was established in 2023 and has, so far, created thousands of work opportunities through partnerships with leading corporates including Mercedes-Benz, Hollard, Pizza Hut, Fairtree and more.
