South African Tourism gives on-ground training to Indian travel agents

ETW Staff – Mumbai

South African Tourism organised its training programme ‘Learn South Africa’ at a bigger and better scale this year. The fifth module of the popular training session travelled to KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng and Western Cape – three of South Africa’s nine provinces. The tourism board hosted 96 valued Indian trade partners to South Africa in two groups this July.

Learn South Africa training programme was launched in 2010 with the objective to enhance knowledge of frontline staff about South Africa. The success and feedback received over the past four years encouraged South African Tourism to not only improve the method of training but also extend the programme to South Africa. This year’s Learn SA was very differently structured in comparison to the past modules. The hosted Indian agents underwent classroom training for half a day and the remaining part of the day was invested in tours and sight-seeing.

Commenting on the all new and revamped module of Learn South Africa, Hanneli Slabber, country manager, South African Tourism said, “The key objective of Learn SA is to equip Indian travel trade with destination knowledge and what better way than taking them to South Africa and getting them to experience the destination first-hand. We showcased diverse experiences to the hosted trade ranging from wildlife, adventure, food and wine, shopping to city tours. We put in our best efforts to design an itinerary immersed the hosted trade in as many experiences as possible over a period of ten days. The Indian travel partners also got an opportunity to interact with select South African suppliers across three provinces and experienced diverse products available in the country and at the same time discussed queries on needs of Indian travellers.”