Capetonians gathered in their numbers in support of VOC’s first-ever World Travel Expo 2019, held at Moerat Events Cape Town, in Boom Rd, Schaapkraal over the weekend. Over 40 dynamic travel and tours, travel accessory vendors and foreign exchange companies showcased their brands and services in the main exhibitor’s hall from 9am until 6pm daily. Avid Capetonian travellers were spoilt for choice at the accessibility of travel and tours information and hands-on personal assistance from various experts within the industry. Hajj and Umrah packages, inexpensive family holiday destination packages, to solo youth excursions, travel accessories and much more were on offer.

Some of the companies’ present were Al Jazeerah Tourism, Acquired Travel, Touramis, Sim Travels, iTravel and tours, One-Stop travel and tours, among several others. The interactive space allowed one to ask any travel-related questions or if one was interested in spoiling a loved one or oneself for a unique solo trip.

“Nothing can replace that face to face relationship with clients. This is a great opportunity to meet us and get to know more about our company,” shared Soraya Paruk from One Stop Travel and tours.

Paruk added: “People always have questions and nowadays there is so much happening in the travel industry, so its nice to meet a consultant and find out more about what’s the latest places, latest trends, the budget-friendly places to go, so today people got the opportunity to talk to us and get the information.”

Bidvest Bank was present to offer banking services specialized for travellers by offering over 22 currencies and assisting with cost-effective cash conversions.

“Its quite important to have platforms such as these, because we might not always reach certain areas and certain people and this is a nice platform because Voice of the Cape is quite obviously well-known and it reaches people that we could not have,” said Gadija Parker, the operations manager at Sim Tours.

The South African Hajj and Umrah Council (Sahuc) and the South African Travel Hajj Operators Association (SATHOA) were also on hand to deal with any hajj and umrah administrative matters.

One of the representatives of Al Jazeerah Tourism shared the importance of making such spaces available for exhibitors.

“For us, any opportunity to inform people, to educate people, this is who we are, and this is what we have on offer. Giving people the opportunity to shop around as well as giving people the opportunity to meet us, the face and voices behind the scenes and basically interact with people.”

The expo served not only the visitors but those exhibitors who used the opportunity for networking as well as sharing of ideas and experiences whilst in the industry.

Amazing giveaways by exhibitors and VOC staff were carried out throughout the two-day expo, with 21-year-old Maryam Solomon walking away with the biggest giveaway of the weekend, a once in a lifetime trip to Vietnam, Cambodia and Singapore. Solomon will join Suburban Travel and tours group when they jet off in December.

Zaynub Isaacs will have the honour of visiting the blessed holy cities, after she was announced as the winner of Al Jazeera Tourism’s umrah trip. Isaacs will undertake her two-week umrah tour during Ramadan, InshaAllah.

It was truly a weekend catering for the entire family with over 20 exhibitors outside the vast courtyard offering quality scarves and clothing, sweet and salty delectable treats, toys and jumping castle for the little ones and tons of warm beverages when the cold front made its brief appearance.

The VOC marketing and events team have hailed the event as a roaring success, despite the intermittent rain over the weekend.
One of the coordinators, Mogamad Zain Majiet said they were overwhelmed by the positive response.

“The exercise for the travel exhibitors was simply to create a database of potential clients and they had pages upon pages. Many of them came back to us to say they were immensely busy. For the exhibitors, it was also a good opportunity to network with each other,” he said, adding that it made “all the rands and sense” to make the entry free to the public.

VOC would like to thank Moerat Events and all role-players who made the event a success. VOC