South Africa Asian focus
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This week South African Tourism is holding its annual INDABA conference in the coastal city of Durban with delegates and buyers from across the globe.
Last year visitation to South Africa grew 14% overall, showing much stronger performance than the global average of 4.5%.
While Asia isn’t a major market for the destination at this stage, South African Tourism has established branch offices in Japan, China and India and new air links via Asia reflect the opportunities presented by the South African market.
In 2006 Asian markets grew 8.1% for South Africa, with the major sources of visitors being China, Japan and India followed by Korea, Taiwan and Malaysia.
Singapore Airlines, Thai Airways International and Malaysian Airlines all operate flights through their respective hubs to Johannesburg, while other carriers such as Air Mauritius and SAA also carry traffic from Asia to Africa.
As well as South Africa there are burgeoning aviation links into East Africa, particularly from the Middle East, and Emirates is now operating double daily services between Dubai and Johannesburg.
Malaysia Airlines also recently concluded a comprehensive codeshare agreement with South African Airways which continues MH ceo’s stated “hub and spoke” strategy, feeding passengers into SAA’s extensive network within Africa.
South Africa is also hoping to further grow its share of the expanding outbound tourism market from China, having been given Approved Destination Status by the Chinese govt in 2003.
China Eastern Airlines recently launched the first ever direct service between mainland China and South Africa, with the Apr 27 take-off of non-stop flights from Shanghai to Johannesburg.
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