ASATA, SA Tourism join forces

29 Mar 2016

In an effort to promote domestic tourism in South Africa, the Association of Southern African Travel Agents (ASATA) and South African Tourism (SA Tourism) have signed a formal agreement.

With a focus on promoting business-leisure travel among ASATA members and their corporate customers, the joint marketing agreement (JMA) will include efforts to educate, upskill and enable ASATA members to sell domestic travel products; create awareness among corporates on the staff wellness and retention benefits of encouraging business-leisure travel within South Africa. This JMA also aims to position South Africa as a preferred tourism destination for corporate travellers by promoting affordable and accessible domestic leisure travel options.

Corporate roadshow

Says Otto de Vries, ASATA CEO: “One of the key tactics we will be employing as part of our promotion efforts is a corporate roadshow addressing the benefits of leisure add-ons to business travel to promote staff wellness and retention.

“In addition to promoting domestic tourism opportunities to our members’ customers, we will also work with SA Tourism to expose member travel agencies and travel consultants to the various tourism opportunities and destinations on offer in South Africa through online training and first-hand experiences, as well as liaise with tour operators to create attractive business-leisure packages that will appeal to business travellers.”

The JMA follows the launch of SA Tourism’s domestic tourism marketing strategy under the campaign “A Million New Experiences are a Sho’t Left Away”, aimed at promoting a culture of travel among all South Africans and encouraging more frequent travel across the destination and throughout the year.

“Bleisure” travellers

“We know that worldwide there is a new breed of travellers who are called “bleisure” travellers because they put fun back into business travel by mixing business with leisure travel. For us at South African Tourism, this partnership presents the perfect opportunity to not only grow this new trend in our own country but to continue entrenching the culture of travel. We truly believe that partnering with the travel industry is the best way to do so,” says Margie Whitehouse, chief marketing officer at South African Tourism.

Through this partnership and working with top corporates in various industries including the banking, telecommunications and government sector, more South Africans will get the opportunity to take a sho’t left and get exposed to million new experiences in our country. This is about more South Africans having the opportunity to enjoy the beauty that our country has to offer,” adds Whitehouse.