UK visitor arrivals to South Africa continue to grow but the destination still faces major image hurdles, according to South African Tourism trade relations manager Matthew Armstrong.
Speaking at World Travel Market, Armstrong revealed that arrivals to June this year were 2% up on 2005. SAT is confident that year-end figures in its biggest source market outside Africa will continue to mirror this pattern.
“South Africa is booming and with 2010 approaching we remain positive – we’ve nothing but a huge bunch of pre-conceptions to break down,” said Armstrong.
Armstrong said travellers to the destination are still not confident about booking spontaneous, ad-hoc travel arrangements when in the destination because of safety fears.
“We had 7.3 million arrivals last year and all 7.3 million went home,” said Armstrong. “There is an underlying perception that South Africa is dangerous but the reality is very few travellers are affected by it.”
Price and seasonability also need to be addressed, according to Armstrong. “We need to spread the peaks and troughs – there is still a perception that South Africa is not a year-round destination,” said Armstrong.
He added that South Africa was recently named second cheapest destination after Thailand in a recent survey.
Meanwhile, South African Tourism is to recruit a new UK trade manager to help support mid-sized agencies and develop an on-the-ground training programme for UK agents. The appointment, which will be finalised early 2007, will bring the SAT UK team to seven.
It also plans to overhaul its online training programme next year and introduce a hugely advanced extranet, in an effort to arm agents with the necessary sales tools. Agents will also have the facility to compile e-brochures for clients.