The South African Tourism Board (SATB) is the official tourism authority for South Africa; its mandate includes the domestic and international markets. SATB launched its domestic tourism growth strategy in 2004. The focus of this strategy is to grow the current infant domestic tourism market within South Africa and influence consumers to travel more within the country. Using the principles of marketing, SATB segmented the domestic tourism market into three segments, namely the established, the emerging and the untapped segments (SATB, 2004). The emerging market has been further segmented into three sub segments namely the young and upcoming, striving families and well off homely couples. The young and upcoming market segment has been chosen for this research. This study seeks to research the impact of the Sho't Left marketing campaign on the young and up coming consumers. SATB has identified that the young and upcoming reside in Soweto, and other previously disadvantaged regions. Due to time and financial constraints this research has chosen Orlando West, a suburb of Soweto as the target population. The findings of the research indicated an awareness of the Sho't Left campaign, yet the campaign failed to do more than create awareness. Some respondents were aware of the packages on offer yet only 1.25% of respondents booked the package deals being promoted through the Sho't Left campaign. This research also suggests a lack of the young and up coming segment in Orlando West. The research findings motivate further research into the defined target market segments to ensure that SATB promotions are aimed at the correct targeted segments.

Thesis (MBA)-University of Kwazulu-Natal, Durban, 2006.