GEORGE NEWS - Tourism manager Joan Shaw attended Africa’s Travel Indaba from 8 to 11 May in eThekwini (Durban).
Africa's Travel Indaba once again gathered tourism stakeholders from across the continent to promote diverse tourism products and experiences to buyers and media from across the globe.
With buyers from traditional markets being inundated with meeting requests, George focused on special interest networking sessions and emerging markets such as the USA, India and the Middle East.
George attended two of the three Speed networking sessions, focusing on Scenic Beauty on 9 May and Local is Lekker on 10 May. Buyers could not believe the excellent offerings in George that they had not been aware of.
Since George does not have a strong safari offering, Shaw did not attend that session, but she did inform all buyers that she meets with just about all the safari offerings in the Garden Route for visitors that request a wildlife experience.
The show delivered many first-time buyers, mainly from the USA, that had a keen interest in new destinations within easy reach of Cape Town and Johannesburg, with special interest in nature, family time and golf - probably George’s top three attractions.
Although the Tourism Department promotes primarily awareness of the destination and all that it offers, quite a few connections and referrals were made to specialised tour operators for packages to the town.
There was also much interest from the media with enquiries from the USA, Germany and France to do features on the destination in the near future.
George Tourism is considering collaborating with tourism businesses to promote the destination and support the features with advertising campaigns, to make them more effective and measurable.
Shaw met with specialised hiking tour operators and media to give exposure to the more than two thousand kilometres of routes in the area and also with stakeholders from the Garden Route region, to create a more holistic overview of the region to promote and attract visitors to the greater Garden Route and Klein Karoo.
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