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WORLD TRAVEL MARKET AFRICA 2023 – A great Garden Route Collaboration

WORLD TRAVEL MARKET AFRICA 2023 – A great Garden Route Collaboration
Issued by George Municipality, 18 April 2023 for immediate release

George, Wilderness and Uniondale Tourism successfully represented the destination at the World Travel Market Africa tourism trade show held in Cape Town last week.  The Garden Route stand was a great collaboration, with areas George, Knysna, Hessequa, Plettenberg Bay and Oudtshoorn represented.  Other exhibitors on the stand included Redberry Farm and Woodlands Villa from George, where Woodlands Villa was a first-time exhibitor at the show.  The stand was well positioned opposite SATSA, who represent over 1,100 inbound tourism products in Southern Africa.  Other Garden Route exhibitors spotted at the show included Knysna Elephant Park, Highgate Ostrich Show Farm, Tsitsikamma Canopy Tours, Lilypond Lodge, Ocean Sailing Charters.  This resulted in a strong Garden Route offering being represented to the tourism trade interested in Africa.

 

This year a Sustainability segment was included in the destination overview, which was identified as one of the most talked about themes on the buyer profiles.   Buyers who George Tourism met with, based on our destination overview, were mostly interested in adventure, cultural exchange, mountain biking and hiking, nature and scenery, power van, National Park, Redberry Farm, gastronomy, nature guides, Dine with a Local, sporting events in the destination, wine, wellness experiences,  and golf.  Across the board, interest by tour operators is mostly for 4 and 5 Star properties that include breakfast.

 

A number of buyers are new to selling South Africa and or the Garden Route and were on a ‘fact finding mission’ where George Tourism was able to provide destination awareness and positioning. Where buyers know the Garden Route area quite well they used the trade show to understand what George, Wilderness and Uniondale has to offer their clients.  Clients of the tour operators met with are from a wide variety of source markets covering Spain, India, Argentina, Australia, Netherlands, USA, South Korea, Russian, Belgium, Germany, France, UK, Nigeria, SA, Cameroon, Congo, Swiss, Austria, Malaysia, Norway, Scandinavian.

 

 

Managing  Director, Chris Ndlovu, from Boyang Gape Tours and Travel who represents Indian and US group tour markets with Sharon House, Senior Tourism Officer for George.