Opportunities Today :- October 2005 Issue

Lance Littlefield Country Manager (India) for South African Tourism

 

Lance is the Country Head for South African Tourism and here he shares his role into making South Africa a popular destination for the outbound market from India.

You have come to India earlier this year as Country Manager for South African Tourism. What are the initiatives taken by you to promote tourism?
Since January, we have opened an India office in Mumbai and more recently we have used our research in India to produce marketing materials for the India office particularly for the Trade- posters, maps, brochures, tour shells, CDs with images for use. We just had an event in Goa aimed at introducing new and existing trade partners both in India as well as South Africa in a unique way where we have a kind of simulated South Africa in Goa. 


How has tourism grown and what are your future projections?
From a future perspective we hope to keep growth at around 10%. Our combined annual growth for the last 3 to 4 years has been around 9%. So we are hoping to get close to 40000 arrivals into South Africa. So far in the first quarter we have shown a 15% growth and if we continue at that pace, we will exceed our target by about 5000 to 6000 passengers. 


The FUNDI programme is also being revised to be more streamlined and would be available completely online as a free resource How has your experience at Deloitte helped you in your current portfolio?
The role of the organization that I currently am running is that of a marketing body. I was head of a brand for Deloitte. So the rules and principles you use for global brands like Deloitte or even a FMCG company, the same sort of rules apply in my current portfolio. It's a strange career move for me from handling 19 different businesses owned by Deloitte in South Africa to actually moving into a small operation where we are a team of three. This move however was for personal reasons. 

 

What are the challenges you have faced?
The challenges are to understand the dynamics of the Indian travel industry and I think they change every day. Some of the challenges have been to translate South Africa to be appropriate to the Indian Market. We've got really established marketing campaigns and strategies in Europe. But those don't really apply when you move east into India.


What will be the role of your office here in India?
Our role basically is to interact with the Trade both here as well as in South Africa. We are not dealing as such with direct consumer queries. What we have for consumers is a call centre which can deal with their queries. We are busy setting up a toll free service from India where the consumers can call, get information, receive material and so on. Our office is specifically there to deal with Travel Partners on our campaigns and on various issues and the things that they need. We have a global call centre which works in 6 languages. 

What is the percentage of business travel vis-à-vis leisure travel and where would be your main thrust?
Our thrust will be two-fold. Leisure travel has been a major part of the South African brand today and that's what we've actively promoted. Later on this year in Europe we will be launching a business tourism strategy and in India we will be starting to look at large corporations for meetings and incentives in South Africa. We've got good support from regional tourism boards in assisting us in certain aspects if there are large groups coming for incentives in South Africa. For example, they might be hosted for dinner by the city they go to. Essentially we are looking at getting into large corporations for their incentives and marketing to them on one-on-one basis. 

Which is your preferred destination in South Africa and what are the emerging places to visit for the Indian traveller?
To actually do justice to South Africa you've have to do a few trips. It is difficult to pack everything into 14 days or even two or three weeks. I think the must see places are Capetown, the Winelands, the Garden Route There are lot of properties on the Eastern Cape coast and the Kwa Zulu Natal coast that are fantastic. Depending on what you want to achieve. Sun City is always popular, Johannesburg has a vibe and a culture of its own. A lot of people don't spend a lot of time in Johannesburg as they think there isin't much to do in Johannesburg. In fact, there is lots one can do in Johannesburg. Personally, I enjoy all parts of South Africa for different reasons. If it's a beach holiday, it would be the Natal north or south coast, if it's for outdoor activities, Capetown and Winelands are certainly very good. I am starting to explore bits of the country that I haven't, like the west coast of the Cape, some inland areas like the Karoo. I will be doing educational trips for myself so that I could know more of the country. 

What has been your overall experience during your stay in India?
I've had a good time in India and every day there has been something that makes you smile. A lot of first world countries feel that India is a place where not many things exist like infrastructure and so on. However, a large part of India is like a place anywhere in the world. 


What are your immediate plans?
We have an Indaba every year in South Africa and now we will be having an Asian version of Indaba in Shanghai between 20th and 23rd September this year and we will be inviting a small segment of the Indian Tour Operators to Shanghai. The reason being that the Indaba in Durban falls at a time which is the peak outbound travel season in India. It's difficult for the busy operators to get away from India at that time. Later on in the year we will be doing a tour operator or a corporate fam or maybe a combination of both and we will also be increasing the number of media participants into South Africa- not just travel media. We will also be looking at lifestyle journalists, be it fashion, food or wine Fashion especially has become extremely popular with Tarun Tahiliani, Rohit Bal and so on. They had participated in the Johannesburg and the Durban fashion week as well and it was a huge success and I think the South African people are quite excited about Indian fashion and it's nice for the Indian people to see that their influence is going to other countries and they will be looking at visiting such countries. We will be taking the media that would enjoy events like the Formula 1 Grand Prix, who would enjoy specific excursions related to golf or wine or spas or wellness or whatever and we'll be working with various tour operators, partners, products and airlines to ensure that the fam trips are a success so that we can get a lot of media coverage as South Africa as a destination is not talked enough. 

What about Bollywood?
I think that what Bollywood is looking out for, at present, we are not able to provide. For example shooting permissions in Capetown are quite expensive purely because Capetown has become such a popular shooting destination for European and American film production companies as well as advertising agencies. Shooting in Capetown is expensive and there are Film Associations that are trying to find out better ways in providing better facilities and benefits to Bollywood wanting to shoot in South Africa. Currently we have a 15% rebate which is paid on departure following a shoot but the ceiling to qualify for that rebate is 30 million Rands which is like 21 Crores and if you look at the Bollywood budgets, they are substantially lower than that. But we are looking at other ways in trying to assist with crew baggage and things like that and I think we will have to evaluate on a case by case basis and on the basis that benefit the country.

On your personal side what are your other interests?
I enjoy food, I can make Rajma and Gulab Jamun and so on. I make my weekly trip to Crawford Market to do my shopping, babble a few Hindi phrases. I spend a lot of time in traveling. I want to travel personally around India. I would like to go to the Himalayas, down south to Kerala and so on. I have still to venture out and see a Hindi movie which is quite bizarre as I have almost been here for 10 months. I generally like relaxing in my spare time as I do a lot of travelling. 

What is your advice to the traveller visiting South Africa? 
I think that South Africa is exotic but at the same time it offers all of the stable, comforting, non-exotic infrastructure in bits-n-pieces which I think is what the Indian traveller looks for. So I think when the Indian traveller is planning a visit to South Africa, they should realize that whilst it may appear that they are shelling out a lot of hard earned cash but the destination will deliver and for the money they pay, they will receive an awesome holiday.