Question NW2945 to the Minister of Tourism

Reply:

(a) What new insights were received from the Integrated Digital and Analytics Operating Framework?

I have been informed by South African Tourism (SAT) that the framework provides real-time insights into the performance of digital campaigns. This includes what travelers are interested in and looking for. The data comes from digital analytics tools that SAT has a license for, namely Google Analytics and Meltwater, can be extracted at any point.

The insights extracted include but are not limited to:

1. What travelers are specifically looking for on search engines used across the conversion curve and while experiencing the country;

2. The traveler sentiment and conversation opportunities at each stage of the conversion curve, inclusive of arrival and experiencing the country. The departure survey remains an established research method by the Analytics division at SA Tourism to extract departure related information. While the digital analytics data can complement the formal research, it is currently used to inform digital marketing campaign performance and improvement opportunities.

3. The type of devices travelers use to consume specific types of content;

4. How long it takes for Domestic travelers to book; - Taken from user behavior on Sho’t left and any advertising leading users to Sho’t left. Since the first time the user saw something on Sho’t left all the way until they clicked on “Book Now”.

5. Provincial demand for domestic travel. – It is demand to travel. The location where online users, in South Africa, are searching from to find Shotleft travel deals.

(b) What are the relevant details in this regard?

The integrated digital and analytic-operating framework is designed to deliver 3 goals across SA Tourism locally and globally;

1. Standardize how SA Tourism business units measure the individual digital marketing campaign performance.
2. Centralize and standardize the storage and management of data;
3. Gather travel demand and experience data for ingestion into the Visitor Information System;

The suite of channels is that which SA Tourism uses to market the country and or engage with sector stakeholders. They are: CRM, Websites, Apps, Social Media, Paid Media, Search Engines for which there are standard tools to measure using Google Analytics, Meltwater and Microsoft.

This forms part of the 2025 strategic journey to champion digital for the sector and is an APP target.