Flight Centre South Africa's website data showed an increase of pages per session of 12,7% from the beginning of the lockdown, March 27, up to April 16. It also showed that we are longing for the beach.
Sue Garrett, gm product and marketing of the group, told Travel News that the top six destinations searched for on Flight Centre during lockdown have been Mauritius, Maldives, Cape Town, Phuket, Zanzibar and Durban.
And with domestic travel expected to open up sooner than international, she said Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg, Sun City, the Drakensberg, and George were showing up as very popular searches.
Sue added: “I do believe that self-drive domestic holidays are going to be the holidays of choice for South Africans for a period. This is due to security and safety perceptions, as opposed to the ‘unknown’ of air travel and airport experiences in our new world.
“Clarity around yield and ticket prices for domestic travel will also be needed for the South African traveller, as this is also still very unclear.”
A press release from Flight Centre said the group believed Africa was uniquely positioned to make a slow but sure recovery, as the vast expanse and diversity of the continent was off the beaten track and away from large crowds, and the shorter flight times would be appealing. The Indian Ocean islands will remain popular, with the examples of Mauritius and Zanzibar always representing good value-for-money holidays for rand-conscious travellers.
