Flight Centre has revealed it issued travel quotes to the value of R140-million in just one weekend, indicating that South Africans are eager to travel despite the weak exchange rate and Covid-19 concerns.
Travel Expo sales reached over R50-million, with more than 100 000 travellers participating in the Flight Centre Travel Group’s pop-up Travel Expo last weekend.
“South Africans are incredibly resilient and continue to look for bargain travel deals,” says Flight Centre Travel Group Middle East and Africa MD, Andrew Stark. “The Travel Expo showed us that there’s still a massive appetite among South Africans to travel, especially if they can get a good deal.”
For the first time, the 10th annual Travel Expo, the largest consumer travel show in southern Africa, popped up nationwide with deals available at all 121 Flight Centre and Cruiseabout stores across the country, as well as online.
While the vast majority (80%) of flight bookings made during the Travel Expo were international travel bookings, domestic travel bookings showed the strongest growth. Local flight bookings were up by over 130% from the previous year, while overall domestic travel bookings showed an increase of over 50%.
“South Africa came up head-and-shoulders above all international destinations both in terms of packages and flights sold, with Cape Town in top spot, followed by Johannesburg and Durban,” says Stark.
Flight Centre’s top-selling destinations for flight bookings following South Africa, were the UK, Mauritius, Australia and New Zealand. Top-selling packages were Mauritius, Zanzibar, Victoria Falls and Bali.
Other popular international destinations this year were Greece, Canada and Turkey. Bookings to Greece increased by over 60%, while Canada showed over 110% growth. Turkey holiday sales were up by over 50%.
Although sales for Mauritius declined compared to the previous year, the island remains a popular destination for South Africans.
“Our best-selling products were Sun Resorts properties [in Mauritius] i.e. Long Beach, Sugar Beach, Ambre and La Pirogue as well as the Veranda properties,” reports Ramesh Jeenarain, MD of World Leisure Holidays.
Although Indonesia and Thailand are usually top sellers for Flight Centre, these destinations were outperformed by cruising and touring this year.
Cruising proved especially popular, with cruise sales seeing an increase of 30%.
Guided holiday tours have also become a popular option for many South Africans.