“ Tenacity and Trust are our new Currencies ” – Martin Botha, Chief Operating Officer for Sense of Africa, South Africa. “ We are redefining everything we know, and reassessing everything we do, to ensure that we retain our trust with suppliers and clients, and draw on the tenacity of our team to emerge stronger and retain and grow our market share in 2021.”
The newly rebranded Sense of Africa, South Africa took a few tenacious steps during the COVID -19 crisis, all strategically thought out, with careful consideration. Some might consider a rebrand in the midst of this crisis, very risky, when many businesses were making very different decisions about closing their operations and scaling back on sales and marketing efforts. For us, as an industry leader, we made the only choice that was in line with our values, and forged ahead with our rebrand, as we have trust in the recovery of our markets, clients and stakeholders, and in the resilience of our staff.
We saw this as a great opportunity to show our tenacity in staying on course, and ensuring that our future is secured in our distribution channel. We were able to execute all our collateral, business card, travel guide and website changes to our new name, utilising technology and in-house talent in our creative and marketing teams. Across most of our social media platforms, we have more followers and interaction than ever before. Our rebrand was met with positive feedback and the hashtag #itjustmakessense , continues to trend!
Joining the African footprint has been a very positive move for us across Africa, and a trusted brand name now unites the various country offices. This positions us perfectly for our strategy of consolidation and cross selling in our business.
No tourism company has been immune to the human tragedy of rightsizing their business, and we faced some very difficult business decisions over the past few months. The call to action that faced our senior team, was to ensure that each and every staff member was treated with respect and honesty, and that we made the right decisions for the entire Sense of Africa brand in South Africa.
By redefining our pillars in Sales, Business Development, Contracting and Operations, we are confident that our core structure is aligned to the new normal. Staff who are flexible, adaptable and able to take on additional roles in the current situation are key to our survival and recovery. Consistency at every level of the business has been retained with our long standing relationships, key language skills in our source markets, and consolidation within our teams. “Because of the enormous sacrifices made by all our people, both past and present, we have a market leading DMC, with a credible brand and strong leadership to take us through the tough times,” says Merle Kwan, Operations Director for Sense of Africa South Africa.
Suzanne Benadie, Sales and Marketing Director, “with a refreshed portfolio of vital services for the international markets, including a health, safety and hygiene verification product, we are confident of remaining relevant and reliable to our core clients, and to attracting new business through our trusted relationships.”