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LEADERSHIP IN INBOUND TOURISM
Tourvest Inbound Operations is the amalga-mated business unit
of Tourvest Inbound wholesale companies responsible for the
development, sales, marketing and operations of foreign tourists
travelling to the Sub Saharan Africa region.
Tourvest Inbound Operations effectively comprises a centralised
environment respon-sible for:
Centralised procurement of suppliers to maximise economies of
scale whilst ensuring comprehensive product offering.
Centralised product ownership and develop-ment including:
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Scheduled
Escorted Tours
Free & Easy Discount Voucher Pass System
Travelplanner Documentation
FIT Solutions
The Bed Zone
(Accommodation Risk Room consolidator)
The Coach Zone
(Transport consolidator)
The Safari Zone
(Open Safari Vehicle consolidator)
The Guide Zone
(Tourism Guide Services consolidator)
The Wheels Zone
(Luxury Touring and Vehicle Logistics consolidator)
The Crown Flight Zone
(Ticketing consolidator)
TIO Solutions - Centralised IT
(information technology) and
IS (information systems) infrastructure.
Centralised Financial Management including accounting
and IT back office infrastructure. |
Tourvest Inbound Operations is a singular cohesive business
unit from a management perspective, however, a critical aspect
of our philosophy is our multi-brand distribution strategy which
ensures our international trade partners enjoy the dedicated
service levels,personal relationships and attention to detail
they would expect from a smaller business, whilst enjoying all
of the benefits of dealing with the largest inbound company
in Sub Saharan Africa.
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The Tourvest Inbound Operations Philosophy
Tourvest Inbound Operations prides itself on maintaining its
leadership role within the Sub Saharan tourism industry. To
this end,we constantly re-evaluate and evolve our offerings
to ensure that we remain one step ahead of other destination
management companies, whilst working alongside our competitors
to maximise the growth of our destination as a whole.
Our philosophy to maintain our leadership role in inbound tourism
is simple, yet profound.
Leadership through
pricing integrity, product offering & development.
Continuous development of our own product places us in the fortunate
position of being able to offer much more than just a brokerage
of services.In many cases, we own our products, control the
price and service delivery,adjust product to changing market
circumstances and react swiftly to the changing demands of the
international source markets .In addition to offering a complete
product range of the well-known tourism areas, we are committed
to actively investigating lesser-known tourism areas and promoting
new routings, attractions and facilities to our worldwide distribution
network.
Tourvest Inbound Operations has an embedded philosophy of ensuring
pricing integrity through the historically developed distribution
channels of inbound tourism. This in essence means that we protect
our overseas wholesale partners and their distribution mechanisms
at all times.
Being a one-stop shop for all Sub Saharan Africa travel arrangements
ensures our clients receive a complete seamless travel solution
through any of our inbound brands.
Leadership
through service
The cornerstone of our service ethic is the consistency in the
delivery of superior service levels. Our business achieves this
through vigorous quality control management systems, ongoing
staff investment to create an extensive knowledge pool,and strategic
development of work processes that improve the interaction with
our brands and their clients.
Leadership
through partnerships
The key to our success is our client retention.We thrive on
assisting our clients in building and maintaining their own
client bases,believe that our clients are our partners and continue
to create win-win scenarios and synergies for the mutual benefit
of both parties concerned.
At Tourvest Inbound Operations, we maintain the same partnership
philosophy with our suppliers.
Leadership
through innovation
Service industries are well known for reactive competitive behaviour,
yet we have succes-sfully managed to differentiate ourselves
by being the innovation leaders in added value,new products,
exclusive deals and automated service delivery.
It is our philosophy to constantly research and evaluate global
tourism trends and evolve our product, business model and destination
management offering on an ongoing basis.
Leadership
through availability
Over the last two years,accommodation and tourism services availability
in Sub Saharan Africa has changed materially. A number of factors
have contributed to this including: an increase in foreign arrivals,
a buoyant domestic economy, increased corporate activity and
an emerging domestic leisure traveller market.
Having enjoyed a buyer's market for many years, Tourvest Inbound
Operations understands that whilst competitive rates have always
been critical in our source markets, without the ability to
get bookings confirmed, rates become meaningless.
To this end, we have focused our efforts on various methods
of creating maximum availability into the future.
Through continuous communication with our key suppliers, we
have integrated our reservations systems wherever possible,
increased our allotment and free-sale agreements and in addition,
have aggressively broadened our risk-room environment, ensuring
that our requirements are met with ease.
Leadership through competitiveness, financial services
& technology
Being the largest inbound wholesaler in Sub Saharan Africa gives
us certain advantages in contracting tourism products, all of
which are reflected in our unique FDM (Full Destination Manual)
with detailed pricing, terms, conditions and additional product
information.
This electronic "rates bible" is completed with a
multi currency converter and automatic markup facility, allowing
clients ease of use and increased functionality.In addition,
our technological developments include:Tourplan - the world
leader in inbound software.
We maintain one of the largest sites in the world and are market
leaders in terms of rolling out solutions for the challenges
particular to the inbound industry.
TIO Intranet is a fully automated and critical component to
our data-share and information management strategy. TIO Extranet
allows seamless integration and communication with our external
suppliers. Internet development-offering business-to-business
solutions and incorporating our recently developed online "zone"
opportunities...Tourvest Inbound Operations is supported by
a dynamic financial services division, which facilitates the
handling of tens of thousands of bookings annually.
Professionalism in the field of accounting, finance and information
technology ensures that we maintain the highest standards at
all times. Technology is central to the success of our business
and we are committed to ensuring that all our systems exceed
the expectations of our first world customers.
Leadership through destination development
Whilst our key focus is to develop our own business within the
inbound tourism arena, Tourvest Inbound Operations takes its
responsible position to promote and develop the destination
as a whole.
To this end,we wholeheartedly support the efforts of SATSA (Southern
Africa Tourism Services Association); TEP (Tourism Enterprise
Programme); DEAT (Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism);
SAT (South African Tourism); and TBCSA (Tourism Business Council
of South Africa) and endeavour to take a leadership role on
important industry matters.
Substantial agent educational projects conducted within key
brands,destination tenders and all destination promotions are
closely co-ordinated with the provincial tourism authorities
and global South African Tourism offices in promoting South
Africa as the destination of choice to key international tourism
partners.
Leadership through Broad Based
Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE), employment equity
and transformation
Tourvest is a donor to the Business Trust, an organisation committed
to furthering the reconstruction and development process by
focusing on job creation,human capacity development and the
reduction of crime. Tourvest has traditionally had a strong
BBBEE component at the operating business level where appropriate.
With the evolution of BBBEE and with the Tourism Charter Scorecard
in mind, the Tourvest Inbound Operations board and our empowerment
partners have recently created a BBBEE division,Tourvest Inbound
Operations Africa (TIO Africa).
For more information on this division, please refer to the relevant
section in this brochure. Tourvest Inbound Operations is fully
committed to sustainable empowerment and transformation within
our own business and through the entire tourism industry, and
has always been very aware of its social responsibility towards
economic development in South Africa.
In 2003, management decided to take this a step further and
implement a strategy aimed at significantly upgrading the skills
and knowledge of their staff. To this end,we embarked on a process
of thorough research and analysis for Workplace Skills and Equity
Planning in line with relevant government legislation. In addition
to the development of our existing staff, in 2006, we created
the TIO Academy for learnership and bursary students.In the
first year of operation,we successfully trained and, in their
majority, employed 26 black previously unemployed South Africans.
The TIO Academy has since been developed further and is now
an integral part of TIO Africa. Tourvest Inbound Operations
embraces the spirit of employment equity and the company ensures
that the following goals are maintained:
a) No discriminatory practices,either implicit or explicit,
will be allowed to exist anywhere in the organisation.
b) No barriers will be implemented or be allowed to exist that
in any manner unfairly restrict employment and opportunities
for any person.
c) The company will endeavor, as far as is reasonably practical,to
enhance the representation of currently under-represented categories
of persons within the company structure, in particular on the
basis of previously disadvantaged persons, either on the basis
of race, gender or personal disabilities, at all levels of the
organisation.
d) The company will focus on the long-term objective of more
closely reflecting the racial and gender demographics of the
South African population.
Tourvest Inbound Operations employs a wide variety of staff
from different ethnic backgrounds. The company actively strives
to maintain an environment free from discrimination and harassment
by arranging regular interactive staff functions that develop
respect for cultural differences, including age, ethnic origin,
race, language and gender.
Leadership through
human resources, training & staff retention
Tourvest Inbound Operations strives to be the employer of choice
within the inbound tourism industry. We therefore endeavor to
recruit the right candidates, develop skills through internal
and external training in order to create career paths wherever
possible, and to retain these staff to maximise their contribution
to the company's progress.
Taking into account the skills shortage the industry is experiencing,
we have further developed our Human Resource department into
a Human Resource and Training centre.
This centre consistently seeks out opportunities to invest in
and build employee commitment through extensive training and
development programs and with our full time training team,we
ensure across the board training in company culture, products,
destinations, personal and professional skills development.
In the words of Kenneth Hildebrand "The greatest undiscovered
resources in the world lie under our hats and stand in our shoes."
In addition, the company has invested in a language library
which offers a selection of language courses including German,
French, Mandarin and Zulu.
Tourvest Inbound Operations endeavors to create a suitable work
environment taking the health and well-being of our staff into
account. These efforts include wellness days,assistance with
our medical aid and provident plans, an across the board incentive
scheme, long service awards, trauma counselling, and social
clubs to name a few.
Leadership through
centralised offices
Following the restructure of Tourvest Inbound a few years ago,in
February 2006, we moved all of our brands into central office
spaces in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and Windhoek, ensuring
maximum synergies and optimum communication.
As a result, we have been able to maximise on our technology
and infrastructure with many centralised benefits.
Leadership through responsible considerations
Tourvest Inbound Operations subscribes to the principle of sustainable
environmental tourism. To this end,the company has embarked
on a project aimed at ensuring that the negative impact that
our business may have on the environment is minimised.
Tourvest Inbound Operations has introduced recycling and responsible
waste management practices, the use of only environmentally
friendly cleaning materials, green-focused community projects
driven through the social responsibility funds raised and an
ethos of education around responsible and environmentally friendly
behaviors both in the workplace and at home.
At Tourvest Inbound Operations,we strive to develop sustainable
environmental projects within the frameworks of the social responsibility
units we presently support.
A portion of the funds collected toward social responsibility
are utilised in indigenous re-forestation projects, green landscape
improvements for underprivileged children and education and
skills transfer around sustainable environmentally friendly
practices.
In addition, we constantly support and develop people and SMME's
from previously disadvantaged communities in the areas in which
our businesses operate, by ensuring that they benefit from our
sales and marketing efforts internationally.
Opportunities include guest visits to these community projects
and ensuring that all gifts needed for clients and in particular
groups, conferences,events and incentives, be sourced from these
community projects wherever possible.
Finally, we ensure that our local community projects benefit
from our charity drives and any exposure that we are able to
generate for them through our international partners in the
tourism industry.
Leadership through the
changing inbound business model
Changes in the inbound tourism industry are inevitable and a
successful business model, in essence, hinges on the ability
to react swiftly to the relevant circumstances in the Sub Saharan
Africa and global tourism industry.
The most noticeable changes currently include easier access
to the supply chain by the consumer, the move to best available
rates (BAR) by the hotel groups to achieve better yields through
dynamic pricing, a vigorous supply and demand situation and
lastly ever-changing global trends.
As South Africa's accommodation and services become increasingly
under pressure and availability becomes a key factor, Tourvest
Inbound Operations has started re-evaluating our place in the
value chain to best accommodate the changing environment.
The historic business model of Destination Management Companies
is swiftly changing, and we concede that inbound wholesale is
one of the last areas in the overall tourism industry where
the traditional model is still applied.
Retail travel, corporate travel and the airlines have already
made the transition to a more dynamic pricing model and we understand
that as leaders in the inbound tourism industry, Tourvest Inbound
Operations has to take the leadership role in facilitating the
changes to the current business model.
During the development phase, we believe that through close
partnership and communication with our world wide clients and
suppliers, we will achieve a better suited, more dynamic business
model.
We invite you to share our excitement in being leaders of sensible
changes in the way inbound tourism business is conducted and
our informed sales teams are eager to discuss the various concepts
with you.
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