Goway Travel officially launched a brand new destination Tuesday in Toronto – Saudi Arabia. The country has been added to its Africa and Asia product after seeing a strong demand for the Middle East.
Goway’s annual event returned after a pandemic pause, and 27 suppliers and 150 agents gathered for a day long summit to learn not only about the new product, but overall trends the company is seeing for 2024.
Moira Smith, Vice President, Africa and Asia, Goway Travel told TravelPulse Canada while the demand for the Middle East is strong, there’s a particular type of traveller who they expect will drive interest in Saudi Arabia.
“We've seen strong demand for the Middle East,” Smith says. “We have passengers who are going to places like Egypt, the UAE and North Africa, especially Morocco.
We have a term called the Goway Globetrotters, which are essentially people who are travellers in every sense of the word. They are open to new experiences. They are early adopters of a new destination. They love the history and the culture and the adventure and Saudi offers all of that.”
Amanda Pilar, Sales Director for North America for EXO Travel, says they are expecting the Canadian market for Saudi Arabia to be strong because we are “more sophisticated than other markets.”
“Our goal is to have well established partners launch in Saudi Arabia and grow the sales together. It’s still very, very early days but I see the Canadian market to definitely be strong. Canadians like to go places before the crowds, so I think for those reasons, it will consistently grow.”
Smith says they are also seeing trends of generational travel, solo travel and pent-up demand, particularly with bucket list items.
“If I can recommend anything, particularly to the people that have bucket list items, whether it's going to migration or going to a specific product like Giraffe Manor, is that we are anticipating a very, very strong 2024 in Africa. The earlier travellers can secure their trips, the better and more opportunities to get what they want.”
In addition to educational events like Tuesday’s, Goway is offering a variety of tools to help agents in selling Africa and Asia. A big one is the GoPro Travel Academy– an on demand, training that’s free and features training on all core products, not just the destinations. One of those offerings is the availability to bring in an Africa Specialist in conversations with clients.
“A lot of agents are fairly new to selling Africa and we are very happy to help. It’s easy to get the client on the phone or zoom and sell by including one of our Africa specialists. The client doesn't even need to know that we're from Goway, we act as your own travel specialist.”
I think our agents gained knowledge today in terms of the destinations that we sell and some of the products that we sell and will go away knowing the length and breadth of our destination and our product, which is key.”
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