Fast-tracking the growth of almost 100 small businesses in South Africa is one of the initiatives at the upcoming Indaba, Africa’s top travel show. It will be held in May at the Inkosi Albert Luthuli International Convention Centre in Durban.

The media launch of this year’s Indaba was held on Tuesday, 28 March 2017.

Delegates from countries such as Angola, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Reunion, the Seychelles, Senegal, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe will be displaying tourism-related products and services alongside local South African exhibitors at the event in May 2017. The event is hosted in Durban.

The Indaba 2017 will host 90 small tourism businesses at the show. Indaba is one of the largest tourism marketing events on the African calendar and one of the top three "must visit" events of its kind on the global calendar.

It showcases the widest variety of southern Africa’s best tourism products and attracts international buyers and media from across the world. Indaba is owned by South African Tourism.

The event, also known as Africa’s top travel show, takes place from 16 to 18 May 2017 at the Inkosi Albert Luthuli International Convention Centre in Durban.

Sisa Ntshona, Chief Executive Officer of South African Tourism, said at the media briefing at the Killarney Country Club in Johannesburg that this year’s Indaba would have a special focus on accelerating small businesses in the tourism sector.

One of the key focuses is an initiative to train and mentor small and medium-sized enterprises, and give it preferential access to influential industry players.

“For me, one of Indaba’s highlights is our new Hidden Gems Programme, which will help boost tourism by enabling smaller players. The 90 small businesses are emerging and existing enterprises are at least 50% black-owned,” said Ntshona.

“They are drawn from each of South Africa’s nine provinces and we call them our Hidden Gems, because they are tucked-away treasures that only a select few know about.”

South African Tourism, in partnership with the National Department of Tourism and the Southern African Tourism Services Association will allow the entrepreneurs to get exposure at Indaba as well as the opportunity to “pitch” their offerings to travel buyers during speed marketing sessions.