South African Tourism has used interest in cricket to launch a 90 000 Indian rupee, 10-day ultimate luxury family holiday package targeting select upper income groups in India.
India has made it through to the Super Six stage of the 8th Cricket World Cup from February 9 to March 23.
South African Tourism’s marketing thrust is initially concentrated on Mumbai and Delhi, though future plans are to expand the marketing drive to other areas. South African Airways had added extra flights from India to accommodate the number of fans who want to visit South Africa.
In addition, two of India’s leading TV stations covering the cricket live from South Africa, Sony and ESPN Star, are forecasting they will attract up to 500-million viewers for key Super Six games involving India. Commentators are also relating their experiences in the country and the host of attractions South Africa has to offer. This, coupled with the provincial tourism vignettes being flighted during matches, is giving the country unprecedented coverage throughout Asia.
Overseas visitors to South Africa soared by 35% y/y to 198,615 in November 2002 after rising by a record 42% y/y in October 2002. This brought the cumulative increase for the first 11 months of 2002 to 18,5% y/y for a total of 1 668 352, data supplied by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) show.
“Tourism is a vital component of the South African economy and as such, it needs to be supported with aggressive advertising and marketing initiatives that drive the demand for travel to our country,” said South African Tourism chief operating officer Moeketsi Mosola.
Statistics South Africa does not specifically track the impact of tourism on gross domestic product, so South African Tourism has to commission private sector experts to estimate the impact of tourism on gross domestic product.
In the third quarter 2002, for instance, South Africa hosted the World Summit on Sustainable Development from August 26 to September 4. The conference attracted more than 60 000 delegates and generated more than eight billion rand in economic activity.
Despite this major event and the large y/y growth in overseas visitors, with the number of overseas visitors to South Africa soaring by a then-record 26% y/y in September after growing by 18,2% y/y in August, Statistics South Africa estimated that the sector where most tourism activity is supposedly captured, namely the retail, wholesale trade, restaurants and hotel sector, saw its growth rate drop by a third to only 1,8% seasonally adjusted annualised from the second quarter, when quarterly growth was 2,6%.
Or the year as a whole, Stats SA estimated that this sector grew by only 2,5% in 2002 after growing by 3,3% in 2001. – I-Net-Bridge