South African Tourism (SAT) over the weekend, at Molapo Crossing Mall’s Stanbic Bank Piazza, invaded Gaborone to sell and promote their preferred tourism destinations.
In a two-day activation, SAT tasked five different local travel agencies to help their mission as Batswana continue to visit the neighbouring country in large numbers. The travel agencies included Easy Escape Travel and Tours, Lets Just Travel, Intercape, Reeca Travel and AT &T Monnakgotla Tours.
According to the project mandate, SAT is looking to improve portfolio, awareness, brand positivity and consideration of South Africa as a leisure destination. Specific to Botswana, the organisation aims to inspire travelers by showcasing new, fun and varied experiences in South Africa to encourage them to travel more frequently.
“SAT has seen that one-on-one engagement with travellers is an effective way to share a taste of what destinations South Africa has to offer and increase sales of travel packages.
This was proven during an exclusive activation at the recent Gaborone International Music and Culture Week’s jazz festival. The travel trade partner was able to record 56% of qualified sales lead for a Joy of Jazz Festival travel package and final sales conversion was 44%.”
SAT marketing and communications officer, Bongiwe Seeti said the overall focus for SAT’s Africa portfolio is to improve awareness, brand positivity and consideration of South Africa as a leisure destination.
“Ultimately, South African Tourism aims to increase number of Batswana travelling to South Africa to experience the country. And in this regard, our expectations were to effectively showcase such diverse and new leisure offerings and that you will discover a new adventure every time you travel to South Africa.
“The activations allowed Batswana to experience South Africa, with the aim of increasing consumers’ awareness of what South Africa has to offer travellers from Botswana” she said.
The five companies were set-up of hero destination experiences such as KwaZulu-Natal’s Eyadini’s urban life experience, Western Cape’s wine experience, Johannesburg’s Neighbourhood Goods Market and Sophiatown lifestyle experience, AFROPUNK FEST Johannesburg experience and North West’s Sun City Valley of the Waves experience.
On average the five companies constitute over 10,000 Batswana who travel to South Africa annually, thus was imminent for SAT to seek ways to benefit from the situation.
Meanwhile AT & T Monnakgotla sales tour agent, Laone Lechiile said they are grateful of the activation as it brought a one-on-one face interaction with their customers. Furthermore she reckons activation need to be held quarterly to pace with the ever-changing times.
“It was a good activation however it would do good if activations are held every quarter of the year. It was also beneficial in the sense that, we managed to interact with our customers, made news ones which we remain hopeful it turns to sales. This has also given us the knowledge of their needs and how we can improve.”
