The Marketing Investment Framework calculated R38 million as the optimal marketing spend to achieve SA Tourism’s 5-in-5 targets of 1 million more domestic holiday trips by 2021.
The Marketing Investment Framework calculation did not take into consideration South Africa’s macro-economic environment and barriers to domestic travel listed below:
Through the SA Tourism commissioned Domestic Segmentation Refresh Study and collaboration with Provincial Tourism Authorities, SA Tourism gained insights into the key drivers of domestic tourism and a renewed understanding of the identified market segments, ensuring their relevance in the current macro-economic environment.
SA Tourism used these insights to augment the outcome of the Marketing Investment Framework and increased the domestic marketing spend by an additional R100 million. SA Tourism is working with provinces to build a culture of travel and to drive conversion.
(a) Optimal annual domestic amount.
SA Tourism’s R138 million domestic marketing budget for the 2017/18 financial year has been apportioned as follows in order to address the barriers highlighted above:
Going forward, some of this budget will be focussed more towards investing in tourism development driven by the National Department of Tourism in order to increase supply of quality and affordable products into the market, thereby ensuring a balance between stimulation of demand and strengthening the supply base.
(b) Other relevant insights which can revitalise domestic tourism that are contained in the study
The Domestic Tourism Marketing Strategy is informed by a segmentation refresh study that was recently undertaken, to enable better targeting of the identified consumer segments, which will inform refreshed messaging and communications. The domestic study found that there are almost 22 million South Africans with a source of income, who can be seen as potential tourists.
(c) Further details
The Domestic Tourism Marketing Strategy will focus on building the culture of travel, converting the travelling population (especially those who travel mainly to visit friends and relatives) to start taking holidays, and encouraging existing holiday-makers to take more holidays.
The research identified three groups of people to target:
In order to broaden the opportunity for growing domestic tourism, South African Tourism will build the culture of travel among South Africans. Initiatives and programmes to build a travel culture will target 3.6 million consumers with adequate disposable income yet not travelling as much as they could.
This population of approximately 1.5 million people is already travelling to a certain extent, but not necessarily for holiday purposes. They buy into the “experience economy” and aspire most to travelling overseas and exploring other countries, prioritising such trips over domestic trips – especially if they are offered a good deal. Since they do not always have the means to travel, they are looking for affordable options, and will prioritise travel if and when inspiration strikes.
This group of about 350 000 people are considered “mature” in terms of holiday travel. They are happy to pay for convenience when travelling, because their time is precious. They enjoy going on holiday seasonally to spend time bonding with their family, and their children are their main priority.
With these domestic tourism focus areas in mind, as well as taking into account key barriers to travel such as affordability and accessibility, South African Tourism aims to: