SOUTH African Tourism commences “Learn South Africa” Training Programme in Ludhiana

Ludhiana, July 15, 2013: South African Tourism conducted the fourth module of its popular classroom training session ‘Learn South Africa’ for frontline staff of travel agencies in Ludhiana today.

The module kick started on July 8 in Mumbai and will travel to many more cities until July 31. The interactive programme aims to intensify the destination awareness and understanding among the travel trade in India.This year, Learn South Africa will be held across 15 cities including tier-II markets like Jaipur, Ludhiana, Trivandrum, Kochi, Coimbatore and Nagpur.  

This year’s ‘Learn South Africa’ is very differently structured in comparison to the past modules. South African Tourism has invited some key South African suppliers to take part in the training programme to facilitate a more collaborative and mutually beneficial learning environment. There are several markets that the tourism board is unable to take its South African suppliers and products to during the annual road shows. However, through this innovative approach to Learn South Africa, South African Tourism hopes to use the expertise of these suppliers to explain the varied products offerings of South Africa to Indian travellers.

Commenting on the new and revamped module of Learn South Africa, Hanneli Slabber, Country Manager, South African Tourism said, “The key objective of ‘Learn South Africa’ is to equip travel trade with destination knowledge that make them competitive in their market, enhances their expertise and allows them to sell memorable holidays of choice to the Indian travellers. It also gives us an in-person engagement platform with our Indian travel trade partners, making the training module more effective, interesting and specific as it offers enhanced value and credibility to the relationship building process with Indian travel trade.”

Year-on-year, South African Tourism has been revamping its online and offline training programmes to include learnings from previous years’ modules of ‘Learn South Africa’.

“Year-on-year basis feedback received from our trade partners, we have been revising the programme and content to make it more contextual to the changing requirements and holiday aspirations of Indian travellers. This year, we have gone a step further and invited select South African suppliers to the training programme to give Indian travel trade an opportunity to clarify traveller queries and get information on specialized needs of the market straight from the people who they engage with to sell South Africa to Indian travellers” added Slabber.

South African Tourism has an on ongoing basis invested heavily in developing market research in key tourism source markets like India. The data and superior quality analysis offers the most updated information on Indian traveler trends, helps the tourism board understand opportunities and competitive threats from each market, thereby, helping them plan their growth strategy. South African Tourism uses this research information to customize its travel trade training programmes to empower the agents with knowledge that helps them make profitable decisions.

Registration for this programme is free and does not restrict the number of participants from each company. Due to the limited availability of seats, travel professionals can register by writing to the board on [email protected] at the earliest. The schedule for this year’s ‘Learn South Africa’ across the 15 cities is provided below:

ABOUT SOUTH AFRICA TOURISM: South African Tourism is the national tourism agency responsible for the marketing of South Africa as a preferred tourist destination. It is headed up by Chief Executive Officer, Thulani Nzima, Chief Operating Officer Timothy Scholtz and Chief Marketing Officer, Janine Hutton.