Keeping Nelson Mandela Bay on the Radar

Putting Nelson Mandela Bay on the map and retaining presence in vital trade and leisure markets is crucial for Nelson Mandela Bay Tourism (NMBT). This is part of NMBT’s marketing mandate which ensures the destination remains relevant and up to date in a highly competitive sector. This is achieved through attending various trade shows and collaborating with partners such as Eastern Cape Parks and Tourism Agency (ECPTA) and SA Tourism to make these opportunities financially viable.

Exploring business opportunities, networking with tourism stakeholders and keeping abreast of latest industry trends are always top on the agenda for someone who attends any travel trade show.  Not attending these events could signal to your trade partners that you are no longer an option to do business with, which could be detrimental to a destination such as Nelson Mandela Bay. Travel contracts between outbound operators, inbound operators, and suppliers are developed and finalized at these types of shows with a diversity of national and international markets.

NMBT attends a few of these shows a year with a variety of objectives. NMBT values existing trade relations created and utilises these platforms to strengthen these relations and introduce any new destination features to the partners while utilising the platform to create new business relations. The destination brand is reinforced along with the product offerings of NMB. Tourism trade shows and road shows demonstrate to your trade partners that you are investing in their markets and creating consumer demand.

Recently NMBT attended a few well known tradeshows in order to harness opportunities and showcase Nelson Mandela Bay to prospective investors. Internationally the NMBT CEO, Ms Mandlakazi Skefile and marketing manager, Mr Titus Chuene attended the WTM in London and ITB in Berlin Germany. WTM took place from the 2nd -7th November 2013 and here the CEO was able to meet with key operators dealing with outbound tourism from the UK, investigate partnerships with the South African Tourism Office responsible for the UK market and meet with trade on the stand to name a few.

ITB is the world’s leading travel trade show and takes place in Berlin from the 5th – 10th March 2014. With more than 174,000 visitors, among these 114,000 trade visitors, and 11,000 represented companies from 189 countries ITB Berlin is the leading B2B-Platform of all tourism industry offers. In addition, the world’s largest tourism convention ITB Berlin Convention provides unique opportunities to benefit from the leading think tank of the global tourism industry. All levels of the value added chain are present: Tour operators, booking engines, destinations, airlines, and hotels right through to car rental companies. NMBT utilized an abundant of opportunities to market NMB and packages to trade, media, travel writers and tour operators.

For the local leisure markets two shows feature on NMBT’s calendar. These would be Beeld Holiday Show which takes place at Gallagher Estate from the 14-16th February 2014 and The Cape Getaway Show at Lourensford Wine Estate in Somerset West from the 14 – 16 March 2014. The Beeld Holiday Show is a consumer travel show catering to mainly Afrikaans speaking community and had a visitor attendance of 22 268 travel and outdoor enthusiast to whom NMBT was able to market the destination. The Cape Getaway had over 17 700 visitors to whom NMBT marketed NMB Pass packages, attractions and products from the city and surrounds.

Meetings Africa took place at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg from the 14 – 16 February 2014. This exhibition provides a quality business platform for both buyers and exhibitors from within the meeting and incentive industry. NMBT was able to meet with national and international delegates to sell the destination as the ideal business destination as well as source leads for future bids. Among the attendees at Meetings Africa 2014 were 169 international qualified hosted buyers (up 15% on Meetings Africa 2013), 31 African association hosted buyers, 238 local corporate buyers, 839 visitor delegates (up 16% on last year), 263 exhibitors (up 11% on last year) and 162 journalists (up 19% on last year). Nelson Mandela Bay Tourism committed to a Meetings Africa Post Tour and hosted seven delegates from various countries including the United States of America, Italy, Czech Republic, India and the United Kingdom in Nelson Mandela Bay.

Another annual highlight on NMBT’s calendar is INDABA which is one of the largest tourism marketing events on the African calendar and one of the top three ‘must visit’ events of its kind on the global calendar. INDABA is a three day trade event that attracts well over 13 000 delegates from the travel tourism and related industries and will take place from the 10 – 12 May 2014 in Durban. NMBT will be attending the tradeshow marketing packages and launching some exciting new products. During INDABA NMBT affords various members and SMME products to be sharing exhibitors on the NMBT stand therefore creating opportunities for small businesses and a wider selection for buyers visiting the stand.

NMBT will showcase the destination to national and international inbound tour operators, foreign travel agents and airlines among others from around the globe. NMBT will also be visible in the SAT premier lounge where 45 meetings with hosted buyers have been set up for the NMBT Chairperson, CEO and marketing manager. NMBT will also officially launch the new blog and digital platform which is to be integrated with NMBT’s new 3 year strategy.  Indaba provides a 3 day interactive platform for great marketing opportunities and NMBT will be sure to utilise these to increase tourism to Nelson Mandela Bay.