South African Tourism 

CHALLENGE

South Africa as a destination, like others globally, was hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. The tourism industry was one of the worse affected sectors and almost
all Meetings, Incentives, Conferences & Events (MICE) were cancelled or indefinitely postponed. This placed even greater strain on the various tourism products across the sector that were largely dependent on the hosting of physical events in order to
remain sustainable. 

However, despite the pandemic, South Africa still led in medical innovations regarding
the pandemic and our safety and security measures remained world class. To this end, it became important in the interest of the stability of the tourism sector to continue hosting MICE in person and encourage the world to come to South Africa for their MICE as it
was safe to do so. 

INSIGHT

We deployed our team of Business Anthropologists who spent time with MICE teams to acquire a more in-depth understanding of what the pain points and barriers to entry were when it came to booking business events in South Africa.

Our team revealed the following key insights:

• Organisers, decision-makers, and delegates were not sure that South Africa was ready and open to rebook and replan their MICE
• They weren’t sure if South Africa was implementing the global standards of health and safety regulations to protect all people
• Organisers, decision-makers, and delegates needed proof that South Africa had the inherent ability to satisfy their events needs in this ‘new normal’
• They needed confirmation that South Africa had sector-specific knowledge and ideas locally and that coming to South Africa was worth the wait

STRATEGY & CREATIVE

We issued an invitation to the world by declaring that: ‘Our Doors are Open’. 

The ‘Open Doors’ concept was developed as a creative positioning that messaged the world that South Africa, despite the pandemic, was open to host the world for their MICE.

Creatively, we used doors that represented all sectors that we were leading in, from a B2B perspective, to show our global presence. ‘Open Doors’ became the launching pad of all future communications that supported the flagship assets to encourage visitors to get back to attending their business meetings and events in person – in South Africa.

We needed to showcase our world-class infrastructure, our innovations, leaders, and our unique destination in all its splendour along with our cultural diversity. It was imperative that we communicated with the utmost attention regarding safety and security protocols, given the concern at the time, but that we also did so without losing the emphasis of what our core mandate was, which was that we operate in several key economic sectors, and we wanted our audiences to continue to see South Africa as a viable and safe business destination to continue to conduct their B2B activities with.

Hence we issued an invitation to the world and opened our doors – creatively using different doors of the different sectors that we operate within as the device to showcase how we lead and innovate in these sectors, despite operating in a pandemic.

An open door is a powerful symbol. It’s a literal invitation – come on in, we’re ready. But it’s also a challenge – when we open doors, we experience new things. We open our eyes and minds along with it. The open doors concept allows us to challenge the world to be open enough to experience the extraordinary ways in which South Africa is the ideal destination for their next event.

Our invitation was: ‘We invite you to experience South Africa by… Arriving Intrigued and Leaving Inspired‘.

AWARDS

South African Tourism (SAT) received top honours at the 2023 International Tourism Film Festival Africa (ITFFA) awards, where ‘Open Doors’ won a silver award in the ‘Tourism Products – MICE’ category.