Returning to Cape Town from a business trip, it became apparent to me whilst observing Chinese travellers and their confusion at signs and seat numbers, inevitably sitting in the wrong place, that we as a country and as hoteliers, as far as our approach is concerned have not managed to maximize our engagement with the Asian inbound market (and other foreign markets).
The fact is, year-on-year, hotels are fuller and fuller, with more and more groups of this nature and we (hotels) are badly equipped to make their stay a truly African one (for example, Chinese guests will only eat at an Asian restaurant). SA Tourism do have initiatives in place for attracting foreign markets, and it is a given that we will get our share of the business, but I think we (the hotel industry) need to look at taking care of them in more meaningful ways.
BON Hotels will certainly be adopting some “good thinking” to offer small pockets of excellence determined by the markets we serve.
