2005/2006 - SANParks

2005South African National ParksTOURISM DEVELOPMENTAND MARKETINGOVERVIEWIt has been a very exiting year for Tourism in SANParks. Average UnitOccupancies once again showed growth ending on 66.00%, growingby 1.3% on the previous year’s results. Unit nights sold grew by 10,364.Tourism income grew from the previous year’s result of R248 million toend on a result of R307 million, a growth of 19.22%.This is a clear indication that the Reservation and Property managementsystem that was rolled out in mid 2004 has begun to show positiveresults in terms of better management control. Notably, concessionincome grew from the previous years income of R24 million to achievea fi nal result of R36 million. This result is also a clear indication that theinterventions that were implemented in this area in the previous yearhave shown the desired results.This year also saw positive growth in the area of black visitor demographicswith results showing a growth from 11.7% to 18.8%. Marketing effortssuch as Sho’t Left and the Isidingo Project, aimed at key domestic growthmarkets are beginning to bear fruit. In terms of our International visitorbase, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France and theUnited States proved to be our “Big Five.” Of our total visitor base, thedomestic market constitutes 75% of all visits to SANParks.The Wild card continued to show growth with an additional 9,533 newcard sales ending on a total of over 81,000 cards sold generating overR10 million. Lastly, towards the end of 2005 SANParks had no optionbut to terminate the concession contract of the KNP restaurant operator.The handover to an interim operator was a seamless one with all facilitiescontinuing to operate as usual. The tender process for a replacementoperator will begin towards the end of the next fi nancial year.TOURISM SALES AND MARKETINGThe year under review has been yet another thrilling year for South AfricanNational Parks (SANParks) Marketing Department. With the department’slimited resources, innovative measures have been made in achieving theoverall organizational objectives.These accomplishments were made possible by concentrating allmarketing efforts on strategic focus areas linked to the organisation’sbusiness plan and – some of these are outlined below:• Creation of tourism packages and designing promotions aroundthese packages to make our product offering attractive and relevantto the identifi ed target audiences.• Focusing on growing the awareness of activities.• Launching and promoting new products.• Re-alignment of SANParks marketing programme with to ProvincialTourism Authorities activities.14