Indaba 2010

Indaba 2010

Indaba is undoubtedly the biggest event in the SA tourism Industries calendar.  And even though year after year we complain about how expensive it is and how there are not enough international buyers we always come back every year.

So what was the 2010 Indaba like?  It was noticeably quieter this year and it really did seem to have fewer International visitors, however this may have been due to the fact that the World Cup was literally only one month away.  We had expected to have more made out of the impending World Cup and were a little disappointed to see that World Cup fever had not really hit Durban and the Indaba just yet.

That being said it seems that everybody was happy with the business that was done during the show. 

As far as AAO is concerned we were very proud of our new look stand and brochure. Donovan and Dané are the ones who really put the hard yards in to bring us this fantastic brochure every year.  We feel that Donovan has brought together a great portfolio of products this year and we hope that you will all find use for these fantastic establishments. 

 

Dané created the new look and feel of the brochure which we believe is an improvement on the old format.  We have had many encouraging comments and some marketing organizations even remarked that it is the best Operator Brochure in the market. 

The AAO stand this year went through a major transformation based on comments from previous years that the stand was too busy. 

 

We opted for a clean cut image and so used the colors of our logo as our color pallet. We wanted the main focus of the stand to be the hand made beaded Logo as it is uniquely African. As a result we choose Black as the main color as we believed this would best compliment the logo.  Also we brought color in through the flowers and cushions which against the black really stood out.

 

 

We had many comments through out the show as to how lovely the stand was and many people liked the color pallet that we used.  The Logo was a great success and we even had people taking photographs. The lounge area was another successful introduction as it made the stand welcoming and many meetings were held in this area.

The only criticism we received was that there was no individual branding for the operators on the stand.  We had thought that listing the exhibitors on the side would have been sufficient but clearly this was not enough.  We invited exhibiting operators to place their logos against the black wall and only one company did.  This is definitely an area that we will work on for next years show.

The presence of AAO and the AAO stand it not only important for those operators who are on the stand but for all AAO members.  It elevates the portfolio of all of the members and creates market awareness.  It also goes along way to making our Preferred Suppliers aware of us as a grouping of operators.

Looking forward we would like to start getting feedback as to who would like to be on the stand next year.  Should we wish to change the dimensions of the stand at all we have to start talking about that now or they will simply give as the same as the pervious year.

Also we welcome all your feedback on the brochure and the stand, with your input we can create the very best brochure and find that perfect balance on our stand.