The only leisure travel and tourism option in SA at the moment is to “go local”. Yet, in Travel News’ latest poll, 43% of agents say they aren’t marketing to the local market at all. 26% say it’s not worth the effort as locals tend to make direct, online bookings, 13% say it’s because the revenues and commissions on local travel sales are not worth it. 4% said was because they had no marketing budget.
The 57% who said “yes we are marketing SA to the local market” had their reasons. 24% of respondents said they were marketing to locals and had always done so, and 25% said they would do so, but only temporarily, until international travel restarts. 8% said that marketing South Africa to South Africans would now be a permanent focus for their business.
