Mzanzi Travel - Local Travel Inspiration (Issue 5)

Business Travel
FROM TECH CITIES
TO LIONS
FOR BUSINESS TRAVELLERS SA OFFERS
UNPARALLELED VARIETY AND EXCELLENCE
Staff Writer
For the business or corporate traveller
to South Africa, the country offers
unparalleled variety and excellence, from
all-inclusive executive travel services, to
superb IT and other infrastructure, worldclass
accommodation, and sophisticated
conference and business facilities. And to
round it all off, business travellers can take
time off to go into the wild and view the
Big Five, or choose from any of the other
multitude of stunning leisure tourism attractions South Africa has
to offer.
With negative global conditions having led companies around the
world to reduce their international travel spend, factors such as the
rand exchange rate, sophisticated business-related infrastructure
and services, ease of travel and South Africa’s centrality, and
excellent local business travel services make South Africa the ideal
destination for business, incentive and corporate travel, as well as
for international conferences.
What’s more, visitors to South Africa can easily and flexibly
combine their business travel here with out-of-this-world holidays
or weekend getaways. So next time you need to do business in
South Africa, or attend a conference here, pack your family off to
one of many stunning resorts, finish your business and then join
them.
And South Africa will soon be investing even more to attract
more business travellers to this country. At the recent Meetings
Africa conference in Durban, Tourism Minister Derek Hanekom
announced that of the R494-million that was allocated to tourism
promotion in the 2017 national budget for the next three years,
more than half, or R290-million, will be used for promoting events
and business travel to South Africa.
A bidding fund will be set up to specifically focus on business events
that are aligned with the priority economic sectors identified by
the government, such as mining, manufacturing, ICT, life sciences
and business process outsourcing. Minister Hanekom also said
that his department’s research showed that delegates coming to
conferences here, and other business travellers, often want to add
on to their business trip, one of the many tourism experiences the
country has to offer. Minister Hanekom said South Africa aims to
attract five million additional local and international travellers over
the next five years, which will include business travellers.
Most business travellers to South Africa at present come from the
United States, while China is also a growing source market. About
one-third of all business travellers also slot in time for leisure travel,
with some favourite destinations being Sun City and Pilanesberg,
Hermanus, the Kruger National Park, Namaqualand, Soweto, the
Drakensberg, the Garden Route, Table Mountain and Cape Town,
Durban and Port Elizabeth, but certainly not confined to these.
While South Africa’s major cities offer world-class facilities such as
Cape Town’s International Conference Centre and Durban’s Inkosi
94 |ISSUE 5|www.mzanzitravel.co.za | MZANZI TRAVEL