Indaba 2007 & Post Show Tour concludes – Its a Wrap!

Indaba 2007, South African Tourism’s premier showcase for African tourism product and services, recently concluded in Durban, South Africa.

Similar to Meetings Africa, the Business Tourism exhibition held earlier in the year at Johannesburg, Indaba simply underlines the huge range of business and leisure product opportunities that are available in South Africa.

There are many unique and different experiences awaiting international buyers, across South Africa’s nine provinces, the biggest problem facing a visitor to Indaba is finding the right one from the vast offering.

The Mole does not pretend to be a good estimator of size, however, it seemed as though Indaba occupied at least the same space as all five halls at the Sydney Exhibition Centre in Darling Harbour, and very probably much more.

It is actually two large exhibition buildings connected by pleasant walkways and outside eateries – the original Durban Exhibition Centre (with an adjoining separate smaller pavilion called The Western Cape Pavilion) and the International Convention Centre (ICC).

Between the two buildings are outdoorsy type exhibitors (and some smaller buildings) with all manner of interesting marquees and machinery (latter is great for blokes!) and pleasant ‘cocktail areas’ amongst the marquees for after-show invitations. Very civilised…..

If the Mole had accepted all his invites, the number of Indaba articles would most likely have seriously declined! The organisers have put some thought into the organisation of exhibitors in order to help the many Indaba visitors.

INDABA EXHIBITOR ORGANISATION

All exhibitors at Indaba are grouped in one of four distinct physical areas:

A.) The ICC  (new exhibition building)

Sub-divided into four separate sections

Accommodation

Tour Operators

Industry Organisations / Media Publications

Transport

B.) Outdoor Exhibitors (between original and new exhibition buildings)

A mixture of Accommodation. Operators and Transport (with all manner of interesting water and land transportation!) – no specific groupings

C.) Durban Exhibition Centre (DEC – original exhibition building)

Sub-divided into three sections:

1. South African provinces including KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng, and Eastern Cape

2. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries, comprising neighbouring African countries, including Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Madagascar, Mauritius, The Seychelles and Tanzania.

The Mole found out all about SADC at Indaba. SADC objectives include regional economic integration, poverty alleviation, harmonization and rationalization of policies, and strategies for sustainable development in all areas.

Indaba is important for these countries as it enables them to reach international markets in a cost-effective manner.  So if you are interested in goodies around South Africa – say, Victoria Falls sightseeing or adventure, or The Kalahari Desert, Indaba is where you’ll find the key operators

3. Tourism organisations

D.) Western Cape Pavilion (adjoining the DEC)

Conveniently gathers the areas in an around Cape Town into a smaller separate pavilion.  Included in this pavilion are the Cape Winelands and the ‘Garden Route’, along with West Coast Tourism.

FINDING YOUR WAY AROUND INDABA

As in most things, a little orientation activity up front can make a major difference to a visitor’s overall experience at Indaba, particularly if you have limited time.  The Moles advice would be to take your Indaba fold-out map, sit down with coffee in hand in an outside courtyard and spend 10 mins plotting your day.

Once you understand the physical layout (above), finding your way about becomes quite straightforward, and hopefully the organisers of Indaba will not substantially vary it at future shows so that repeat visitors will feel immediately at home amongst the forest of exhibitors.

Simply identify your areas of interest and home in on one of the four areas, for example, if you were interested in South African accommodation options, then you would head straight to the ICC, whereas if you wanted to find out about The Mauritius islands you would head for the DEC.

Mind you, it did take a while if I passed anywhere via the Western Cape Pavilion and there was a wine tasting on offer… or if I passed an inviting seat in the sunshine from which to sup a cappuccino…   Large maps, colour coded areas within each building and information desks ensured that you could get to where you wanted to go with the minimum of fuss!

The outside areas actually make a good point of difference to other exhibitions around the world.  The Mole has been to a number of exhibitions where you are couped up all day under the flouros, and 5pm just can’t come fast enough.  At Indaba, you are never very far from an outside ‘breakout’ area and refreshments that are fairly reasonable regarding price.  At the end of the day you usually still feel pretty good (and keen to take up a marquee invite!)

EXHIBITOR PROFILES

There are the usual exhibitor types including Tourism associations and bodies, attractions, marketing organisations, operators and wholesalers, MICE & Travel Agents.  Accommodation, also as usual, is the best represented, from B&Bs and lodges to hotels, resorts and swish boutique Spas.

Pictured right is Linda Ngcipe from Tourism KwaZulu-Natal.

One type of accommodation has its very own profile, and is not mixed in with the general grouping of ‘accommodation’ – the ‘Game Lodges’.  These are the uniquely African offerings for both the business and leisure tourist.

In Southern Africa, there are private nature parks, game reserves (public and private), conservancies, sanctuaries and national parks (such as Kruger).  Not sure what the subtle differences are, however, chalets and lodges can be located inside these areas or adjacent to them.  They all have one thing in common – viewing game in exotic settings and offering a range of activities to interact (at an appropriate distance!) with the wildlife.

The Mole was lucky enough to stay at the Falaza Game Park and Spa (see previous article in May 23 eNewswire) a 4 Star tented camp offering game viewing close to Lake St. Lucia, and had a close encounter with a rhino.

There is an absolute plethora of Game Lodges at Indaba! Wandering through the various Indaba alleyways, the names just keep on coming! Kuzuko Lodge, Kings Camp, Londolozi, Leopard Hills, Nitani.

As there is now so much competition in this space, some twists are being added, such as offered by the Zebula Country Club & Spa.  This 5 Star establishment is a “combined nature reserve and golf estate, the only 5 star of its type in Africa”. Witwater Safari Lodge & Spa offers “suspended timber walkways and a wellness in the wilderness Spa”, while Mateya Safari Lodge in the Madikwe Game Reserve is “home to the super 7” (wonder if they were talking about a Sevens rugby team..?!)

THE WRAP

So that pretty well covers who and what is at Indaba and how to go shopping, what of Indaba 2007 itself?

Just have to start with the weather – it was fabulous for all four days of the show. Combined with the outside areas, it was a perfect atmosphere to do business.  The integration of the original Durban Exhibition Centre and the new ICC was pretty seamless and all areas had free WiFi internet access.

On the down side, you would think that the majority of exhibitors could consider making all the glossies et al available on electronic media. Though there were a number of CDs / DVDs on offer, the paper mountains were amazing, even ‘eco-tourism’ companies went the full glossie! How much has ended up in ‘Durban Disposals’ would make an interesting stat!

A Mole flight of fancy perhaps, but… wouldn’t it be good if each visitor had the option to purchase from a range of storage devices geared to the approximate MBs they expected to take home! Exhibitors could even be given guidelines to ensure those huge images & docs are reduced to a reasonable size.  When visiting an exhibitor, visitors could simply plug in and download, or receive a CD / DVD. Paper should be third on the list! Comments?!

Though covered in a previous article, it is worthwhile repeating some major points:

* Attendance up by 6% exceeding South African Tourism’s expected attendance of 12,000

* There was an encouraging increase in exhibitor numbers

* The ‘Historically Disadvantaged Individual’ category was up by 62%

* The ‘Global Media Face Off’ addressed controversial issues around Soccer World Cup 2010

* Launch of South African Tourism Online Marketing Educational Seminar

South African Tourism CEO Moeketsi Mosola summed it all up by saying “This is South African Tourism’s principle marketing platform.  It is the one place and time in the year that the entire South African tourism industry is united in the pursuit of a common objective – to sell South Africa effectively to grow the industry and economy.  This year’s event was a great success superseding all expectations in every regard.  Next years event (10-13 May 2008) promises to be even more diverse, more interactive and more rewarding than ever before.”

So if you are looking for a great tourism experience for your clients, whether that is for business or leisure, Indaba is a great place to start (and don’t miss the Beach Party!)”

Report by The Mole