South Africa’s Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism has launched the government’s Domestic Tourism Growth Strategy (DTGS), a three-year plan aimed at encouraging South Africans to travel more frequently in their own country.
Unveiling the strategy at the Tourism Indaba 2004 in Durban this week, Director General of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Crispian Olver said it will also spread the benefits of tourism even further, having been based on extensive research.
“Over the past 12 months, extensive research conducted by South African Tourism and [the department] has confirmed that domestic tourism is the ‘bread and butter’ of South Africa’s tourism industry, with some 49,3-million trips being made annually by South Africans, comprising 46% of total travel expenditure.
“This figure has reaffirmed the rationale behind investing in domestic tourism marketing activity to further encourage a sustained leisure travel culture among those in the country who traditionally do not have a history of holiday travel.”
Olver said the DTGS focuses on South Africans falling into three basic categories: “established”, “untapped” and “emerging” tourists. To enlist the buy-in of these various consumer segments, SA Tourism will be working closely with the provincial tourism authorities to encourage the promotion and distribution of information and more affordable travel products tailored to these market segments.
Increasing domestic travel will also contribute towards SA Tourism’s key mandate to increase the volume of tourists, increase their spending per trip and improve geographic spread and out-of-season travel patterns, thereby addressing the challenge of ensuring the creation of sustainable jobs.
Seven domestic travel experiences have been identified for marketing and product development opportunities — called City Breaks, Coastal Getaways, Mountain Escapes, Cultural Discoveries, Countryside Meanders, Bush Retreats and Events.
To assist the travel trade, the department and SA Tourism have provided the DTGS outline and segment information in both a booklet and web-based format.
“We want to encourage the industry to use the research and strategy to inform their business plans and growth strategies, creating a common goal for the growth of the domestic industry. We are also committed to continually updating this research and providing measurement of our success as an industry in future,” continued Olver.
During the launch, SA Tourism also introduced its first marketing initiative for boosting domestic tourism — a R5-million campaign to be launched on June 10 that incorporates a television programme on SABC2, supported by information in the Sunday World and the Sowetan newspapers and a radio advertising campaign.
The programme, Sho’t Left, will be aimed at the untapped and emerging segments of the market uncovering affordable and interesting places to visit in all of South Africa’s nine provinces. — I-Net Bridge