PHOTO: Cape Town provides the city component of the Cape-Safari package (Photo by David Cogswell)
SmarTours, a New York-based tour operator is offering a nine-day Cape Town and safari package to South Africa at about the lowest price anyone has seen in this market in a long time.
The Cape Town and Safari Express is offered at $1,499 per person double occupancy, and this includes roundtrip transatlantic air.
This price is certainly hundreds of dollars less than what is normally seen for comparable packages. The company claims that the tour price was negotiated through special arrangements with suppliers after the market took a beating from the Ebola scare. That price is not likely to be available long.
The company already is setting tours for March and April at $1,599 and $1,699, so the $1,499 price has a short life span indeed.
Travel Pulse asked Greg Geronemus, co-CEO of smarTours, how the price could be so low on a tour that is safe and comfortable.
"We get this question all the time about our tours all over the world," said Geronemus, "but especially with South Africa...and we love to answer it! I'd offer a few reasons:
"(1) We send thousands of people to South Africa each year and have very favorable relationships (and rates) with suppliers.
"(2) Several of our tour operator peers have created a perception that travel to South Africa needs to be extremely expensive, but that's not the case if you stay at 4-star hotels, especially now with how much the US Dollar has strengthened vs the South African Rand.
"(3) Tthe South African tourism industry is very eager to get travelers back!
"There's no question that travelers all over the world (including American travelers) reacted irrationally to Ebola, lumping together the entire continent of Africa and not realizing that South Africa is farther from the affected areas in West Africa than Paris, London, Rome, even Rio de Janeiro. As a result, booking activity to South Africa took a big hit, especially in the first half of 2015. While we're starting to see a rebound, there's no question that this pricing would not be possible if not for the eagerness of the South African tourism industry to bring travelers back.
"Finally, the quality speaks for itself (see featured hotels: https://www.smartours.com/tour/cape-town-safari-express/#featured-hotels), and there are no safety concerns, especially since our tours are guided throughout."
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