FlySafair has launched FlySafair Holidays on its website, a travel package solution that offers passengers the option to book flight and accommodation packages around South Africa.

For the initiative, FlySafair partnered with local travel technology company, Tripco, which is best known for its LekkeSlaap booking platform. Chief Marketing Officer of FlySafair, Kirby Gordon, told Tourism Update that the airline had been working with Tripco for some time, selling FlySafair flights through the company’s LekkeVlieg platform, and had always found Tripco very much ‘on the ball’ from a technology perspective.

According to Gordon, Tripco’s strong local accommodation offering had incentivised FlySafair to partner with the accommodation provider for this initiative, with Tripco accommodation offerings pulling through to the FlySafair website through a white label offering.

He added that FlySafair was not promoting the full range of Tripco accommodation offerings. While LekkeSlaap tended to play more in the B&B and small lodge arena, FlySafair had hand-picked accommodation options that were in the geographical vicinity of its flight destinations, and focused more on larger-capacity establishments.

“We saw partnering with FlySafair as the perfect opportunity to create new travel technologies and reach new markets. The lockdown created a unique opportunity for local brands to target customers who would normally travel internationally but have been unable to do so for a long time. FlySafair Holidays will combine the luxury feel of international travel with the best travel opportunities the local market has to offer,” said Tripco Executive Director, Jonathan Womersley.

“As our whole industry works together towards recovery, we wanted to expand our offering to customers, giving them the option to book all the elements of a local getaway in one place,” said Gordon. “Our goal has always been to open the skies to more South Africans by offering flights at great value for money. With this new venture, we hope to take this one step further and provide travellers with access to more budget-friendly package options.”

Gordon added that FlySafair had plans to further diversify its income streams and was already working on plans to add car hire to its land package offering. He said the addition of car hire to FlySafair Holidays’ options would also open up the geographical scope of the accommodation offerings that the airline was able to promote.

The packages are targeting consumer markets and no B2B (trade) booking options are available at this stage.

Gordon said FlySafair had seen some uptake in package bookings earlier this month but there had been a slump in interest this week, as consumers waited to hear whether or not more severe COVID-19 regulations would be put in place as SA entered its third wave.