INDUSTRY FOCUS: TOURISM

//A proudly Bidvest company, BidTravel, through its 11 companies, provides industry-leading travel management services to corporate businesses and leisure travellers through an extensive local, regional, international, and online network.

The return of Chinese tourists to Africa combined with a full resumption of operations on international routes by African airlines are the latest indicators of a rebounding tourism industry decimated by the Covid-19 pandemic two years ago. In February China picked three African countries—Egypt, Kenya, and South Africa—among 20 across the globe for piloting outbound group tours, with the United Nations World Travel Organisation’s latest World Tourism Barometer confirming that would push Africa’s international arrival numbers back to 2019 levels.

“We are upbeat as all indications are that our tourism sector is on a fast highway to recovery,” was the take of South Africa’s Tourism Minister, Lindiwe Sisulu as the country’s arrivals from

January to October 2022 were recorded at 4.5 million, with the international tourism boom looking even brighter in 2023 due to the resumption of entire operations and re-introduction of higher capacity aircraft on African routes.

Buoyant Return

“Things are going well, and we have certainly seen travellers returning in their droves,” agrees BidTravel

CEO Lidia de Olim Folli. “South Africa came off most countries’ lists in around late April or early May22, after which things absolutely skyrocketed. The consequence of this, though, was that airports internationally were unable to handle all such a sudden increase and this severely dented our ability to return to a pre-Covid normal.

“It has been extremely buoyant, however, to the extent that capacity has been available. We have found that our premium cabins have been the first to sell out, interestingly, with economy class seats remaining, and this was very pleasing to see.”

De Olim Folli puts this rush, and desire for a more luxurious experience, down to the sheer exhaustion universally felt from the endless online calls and meetings of the epoch and the abject removal of face-to-face interaction, causing people to dash back at the first opportunity to begin to reclaim some semblance of normality.

“Both domestically and