The 2019 Africa’s Travel Indaba will take place from May 2 – 4, 2019 at the Inkosi Albert Luthuli International Convention Centre in Durban, South Africa. Indaba has been brought forward by four days from the earlier scheduled dates.
Last week, President Cyril Ramaphosa, announced in his state of the nation address that the national election will take place on 08 May 2019. This would have coincided with Indaba.
According to South African Tourism’s chief executive officer, Sisa Ntshona who had set up a task team that comprised of representatives from SA Tourism, Department of Tourism, Durban ICC, Tourism KZN, Tourism Business Council of South Africa (TBCSA) and eThekwini to explore all available options and it was decided that moving Indaba forward was the best possible option.
The task team took into account various factors and permutations in reaching the new date.
“The national election is the cornerstone of our democracy and is a celebration of our freedom in South Africa,” says Ntshona.
“It’s an important date and occasion for all South Africans and we need to acknowledge and respect the date.”
“At the same time, I must express my heartfelt gratitude to the Tourism industry for their understanding of the situation, I have received many calls, emails and texts with advice and support. I am really impressed to experience how the tourism sector gets together. I also want to thank the Indaba Organising Committee involved with Indaba – they are Tourism KwaZulu Natal, ICC and eThekwini (Durban Tourism) – for being accommodating with regards to the change,” added Ntshona.
“From a Tourism Business Council of South Africa (TBCSA) perspective, we presented comprehensive views of the sector to the task team and ultimately the key thing for us was to get a new date as quickly as possible,” commented Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa, CEO at TBCSA.
“We will now work with all our trade partners to ensure that there is smooth transition into the new date as many would’ve had plans in place already for the previous date. We still have a key role to play in achieving Indaba’s objectives of selling South Africa and the continent to the rest of the world.”
Indaba is one of the largest tourism marketing events on the African calendar and one of the top three must-visit events of its kind on the global calendar. Last year, over 7 000 delegates attended from 80 countries and to further strengthen existing partnership and collaboration within the continent, South African Tourism’s West African hub hosted 26 delegates from Nigeria and Ghana at the Africa’s Travel Indaba 2018.
Registrations for buyers and exhibitors are still open. For more information, visit www.indaba-southafrica.co.za
Story contributed by Chaste Inegbedion
