Set for adventure tourism

South African tourism, which has revamped its approach to reach out to more tourists, particularly Indian travellers, promises to be adventurous like never before.

The City got a glimpse of South African tourism, as part of ‘Learn South Africa’, a session for travel agents which was held recently.

Country head of South African Tourism, Hanneli Slabber, says, “The key objective of ‘Learn South Africa’ is to equip travel trade with destination knowledge. This does not only make agents competitive, but enhances their expertise and allows them to sell memorable holidays to Indian travellers.”

In a bid to attract more tourists, the tourism board has roped in former cricketer Jonty Rhodes as the brand ambassador.

Slabber says, “South Africa gets about 1.06 lakh tourists from India and 50 per cent of them are from the South. We would like to push holiday tourism because it creates more jobs for people in South Africa and it is a huge market.”

‘Tourism generates more revenue than gold trade,” she adds. About what the country offers to Indian travellers, she says, “We concentrate on creating region-specific holidays to people. For instance, tourists coming from two cities — Goa and Andhra Pradesh —  may not prefer to do the same kind of activities. We create holiday packages to suit their needs and interests. However, our three biggest cities — Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town — attract the maximum number of tourists from all regions.”

Water sports, which is another major hit among tourists, is popular too. Twenty-seven South African beaches have received Blue Flag, an internationally recognised programme to award the best beaches in the world. Not just adventure and water sports, safari, including veterinary safari and hot air balloon safari, never fail to impress kids, she says.

“Open jeep safari is fun, but veterinary safari is exciting as it gives tourists an opportunity  to spend time closely with animals,” she adds.  The restaurants too are not behind in keeping up with the needs of their customers, specifically tourists.

“Some of the Indian tourists prefer only Indian cuisine. Hence we offer South Indian, North Indian and South African-Indian cuisines in our 300 Indian restaurants. Apart from tourists, the country also houses a huge number of Indian population,” she says.