BIDTRAVEL: SA Tourism Lives Again

By introducing legislation, restrictions, lockdowns, and controls around the movement of people, politicians took the fight to the quickly spreading Covid-19 virus in 2020. But the outcome was devastating for industries that run on people travelling. Tourism, hospitality, transport, food and leisure, and many more were quickly stopped in their tracks. Industries that employ millions of people, and contribute heavily to GDP, cramped up and crashed when lockdowns were implemented. In 2019, tourism contributed 3.7% to GDP (more than construction or utilities or agriculture) and around 4.7% of the total workforce in South Africa.

BidTravel – the leading SA-based travel management specialist for both corporate and leisure services – was not exempt from the impact of the pandemic. Even its Bidvest-backing could not shield it completely from the mass cancellations and grounding of fleet which decimated South Africa’s inbound and outbound travel.

But the strength of the business has been displayed clearly through the pandemic. Each of the companies operating under the banner or in partnership with BidTravel (Cruises International, Rennies-BCD Travel, CWT SA, Travel Connections, WorldTravel, BushBreaks & More, Quadrel Travel Management, Harvey World Travel, New Frontiers Tours, and many more) have right-sized to best serve the needs of clients and provide expertise that truly makes a difference.

Whether it’s simply booking flights on the best routes at the best price for delegates travelling to a conference, or bringing international visitors into South Africa for an unforgettable experience – handling everything from travel to accommodation and more – BidTravel has the market covered.

CEO Lidia de Olim Folli tells Enterprise Africa that the company was forced to reposition quickly, making the most of local opportunities while borders were closed, and standing strong when the world began to book into South Africa again. Her outlook is positive, and the past few months have provided much to be excited about.

“We saw a pickup in October and November, and the following the Omicrom variant being identified, December and January cooled off. At the end of January, we saw huge interest,” she begins. “People were coming back into offices and domestic interest was big. International carriers only began coming back into the country in February but not running full fleets. To look to the future, with all things being equal and no one making any silly decisions, our domestic will come back into full swing by June. Internationally, we build interest for business and leisure, and we do expect to see more people coming into the southern hemisphere – I’m quite positive. I don’t think we will get back to where we were 100% in this calendar year, but I think we will be at 80% by the end of the year.”

She is delighted at the prospect of hiring again. Tourism has long been hailed by government as a creator of jobs, and de Olim Folli agrees, highlighting the speed and sustainability that comes with employment in this industry as a real boon.

“The tourism industry has always been viewed as a good developer of young talent because there is not a large barrier to entry in terms of starting small businesses – it has been identified as a growth opportunity,” she says. “It is relatively easy to get trading licenses; it’s the exposure on the map and marketing the business effectively that takes more time. Any other industry requires large investment into capital equipment and can take a long time to yield.

“The hospitality has and is suffering from a skills shortage while people have been forced to find alternative opportunities. It’s not just in our space – it takes a massive amount of time and effort to restart a hotel for example. The prep work is a lot – the entire industry has been hard hit, globally,” she admits.

THE RIGHT INVESTMENT

With a future investment strategy surrounding people, BidTravel will look to upskill, reskill, and recreate employment quickly as the country looks for opportunity.

“In the services industry, an investment in people can never be the wrong investment,” confirms de Olim Folli. “All of us who work in the industry are struggling to make commercial decisions as we are recovering after an extended period of loss making. We will certainly continue to look at opportunities and see what is out there, but I have said to the team that our focus must be internal. It has been hard for people working in travel and giving confidence that you can have a career in this business is now vital.”

Such a large change in the make up of the workforce has made attracting talent difficult – and the virus lingers, creating ongoing uncertainty. A new BidTravel training programme will demonstrate the opportunities that are available and the transferable skills that are quickly picked up in travel and tourism.

“You have to expose people to the industry – we are busy working on a learnership programme for employees already in our businesses where we can train junior and intermediate level people. They have to experience getting on an airplane, going into hotels, getting to lodges – we have lots a lot of IP with people who have left the industry. For us, our next 18-months is internally focussed as you have to rebuild the workforce. It’s more complicated in Africa where people have less access to the internet and self-study, less experience working on the phone, and inconsistent electricity supply.

“We want to put a structured process in place so that in 18-months’ time, the workforce has been rebuilt but with the right set of skills. This is absolutely essential as senior people will eventually retire and we need to have a supply of people to follow in their footsteps,” details de Olim Folli.

DOMESTIC FOCUS

With full international interest in travel to southern and South Africa not expected for another 18 months, the travel management market – especially around leisure – has switched to take up a local focus while people pause for total certainty before booking flights into or out of the country.

For BidTravel, this was an easy transition and the company has, for some time, been well-placed to cater to the domestic market. Its subsidiaries are knowledgeable, experienced, and keen to encourage exposure to South Africa’s beauty, but they have needed to shift.

“Businesses like BushBreaks have been resilient, as  it has exposed South Africans to bush opportunities as the bush lodges in Southern Africa tend to be well-kept secrets and very expensive because they are targeted at the international markets. Now, they have changed pricing structures to accommodate southern Africans,” says de Olim Folli.

“South Africans have the experience of the bush mainly through our national parks, as a camping experience as opposed to a lodge. When there was a lockdown or restriction, BushBreaks would do better as South Africans couldn’t go anywhere. A big blow for us from a leisure and market perspective was Mauritius – a hugely popular destination for South Africans. It opened to us in October with huge forward bookings, but with Omicron, it closed again in December. Many South Africans had vacations booked in island destinations including Mauritius, Zanzibar and the Maldives and they were all of a sudden stuck at home looking into South African holidays, for the second time,” she adds.

Now, BushBreaks has consistent repeat business coming through and in any given month, there is an influx of reservations – especially around school and public holidays as the staycation grows in popularity. “We’ve never really had that in the past; it’s always been a last-minute special type of operation where people would book to get away for the weekend. We would send a mailer on a Thursday and people would see it over the weekend and book for the following weekend. Now we see more consistency and that is a benefit.”

The ability in individual businesses to be agile in strategic decision making is representative of the larger BidTravel organisation, and de Olim Folli is sure this trait will be required in the future.

“The lodges have realised that you must have a mix of both and you cannot online rely on only international tourists. Announcements are made that are beyond our control and all of a sudden you have no guests, and that is incredibly sad.

“It has made us resilient and we now realise that we can overcome a lot more than we ever thought we would, and you can be a lot more nimble. Technology has enabled us to think creatively, outside of the box, and bring about change that would have otherwise taken a lot longer. We have to look at the positives and we are happy with our learnings individually and a business.”

RISKY BUSINESS?

Despite the positive outlook, and the pleasing improvements in traveller numbers into and out of South Africa, the market remains challenged and uncertainty is often the only certainty. People remain concerned about the effects of Covid-19, and de Olim Folli is busy setting new strategies to make the most of opportunities that are available now.

“It comes down to an individual’s risk response,” she says of the question around whether business travel will return as a true requirement. “As Bidvest, we have always hosted incentive travel trips for our top performers across the many Bidvest businesses. We were bullish about a recovery for travel and had organised a big incentive trip for our team in early December 2021. Our group CEO wanted everyone on that trip to be fully vaccinated, there were some who do not want the vaccine so it’s about risk management from a corporate perspective and keeping employees safe and within regulations. Business travel is now not as essential as there are other mechanisms, but people do want to get out and meet people – that is a fact. We had questions around this trip about whether we would be interacting with others in the airport, or if we would travel with masks. There will be 150 of us who are all colleagues but there was a lot of angst about people sitting on airplanes. I do think that those of us are risk agnostic will continue to travel, but there are some who were perhaps not regular travellers in the first place and will now simply never travel again.”

But, now is the perfect time to grow our market share as smaller companies battle for their stake while BidTravel has strong backing and the ability to offer what others cannot, bringing a turnkey service to clients. Utilising social media, promoting transformation, and rebuilding Brand South Africa will help the group to thrive.

“You can’t ignore the role of social media. Each and every one of the businesses has a social media strategy around what works for them in terms of target audience,” confirms de Olim Folli. “People are so familiar with being online and so the strategy must be mobile. Across the African continent, people didn’t have access to a desktop. We are the continent that has gone from having nothing to having enabled mobile phones – that is a strong mechanism for us.”

By working hand-in-hand with small, local businesses, the company champions BBBEE and, with the Bidvest Group a Level Three contributor, there is much opportunity for partnership.

“We try, in the corporate space, to pair up with others to offer opportunities that need enablement. The communities that lodges support can be rural and can support local jobs and spend a lot of time training there. Small businesses quickly enable other small businesses to get started. It all ties in to BBBEE and we do everything we can to provide opportunities,” explains de Olim Folli.

“Also, a central and vital goal for us and our industry is to re-establish South Africa as a premium tourism destination, that would make all the difference. It’s a beautiful country to come and explore.”

REASONING RE-ESTABLISHED

As numbers have started to pick up, there has been a clear acceleration in the leisure space as travellers have yearned for new experiences. But in the business space, questions remain about relevance.

BidTravel and de Olim Folli have no doubt that the group’s offering is still relevant, and that business travel will undoubtedly be required.

“Across both leisure and business, we have seen the reestablishment of the reasoning behind why we need to work with individuals who are skilled. It’s important to realise that people need help more often that they realise and it can be difficult and unpredictable.

“In leisure, where we saw an attrition of people wanting to use travel specialists because they can do it themselves, we are now seeing people struggle as they simply cannot get through to an airline that has been grounded because those call centres are too busy, for example.

“There was a lot of talk of business travel being dead and there would be no need for travel consultants. There was recognition that there would always be some demand for leisure but on business travel – with everyone sick of Zoom and Teams meetings – there is now recognition that digital solutions were only successful because there was no alternative. I believe that hybrid events are not as effective. We must work with technology as opposed to it becoming the only enabler. There is a place for business travel, there will always be a place for business travel, and it is not necessarily something which should be navigated alone. We don’t want to do everything, but we are there for the complicated stuff and we can help,” she states.

With the rationale for the organisation’s existence validated, future regrowth is essential, and this blossoming group of South African advocates will see internal investment that will drive external prospects.

“Our investment will go into our people,” de Olim Folli concludes. “I do believe the opportunity to grow market share is there now.”

Today, southern Africa is very much open for business. Travellers are welcome, and the rest of the world is accessible to South Africans as they move for business or leisure. BidTravel has the tools to ensure a smooth process throughout. Clearly, there is a chance to regain the industry’s GDP contribution and create organic, sustainable opportunities. Thankfully, the tourism industry is helping travellers to Live Again.