NAMIBIA: Air Namibia Named Best Airline In Africa

Air Namibia was named the Best Airline in Africa when the global flight and travel search platform, Cheapflights, recently announced the winners of its inaugural Cheapflights Travel Awards in Cape Town.

The awards recognised the best southern African travel and tourism business and brands in a range of categories from the best local airports and airlines, to the best safari and wine offerings.

South Africans casted their vote for their favourite travel brands and businesses over the past month, as nominated by the South African Travel Massive blogger community.

With over 50 000 votes cast, Managing Director of Cheapflights Andrew Shelton said: We were overwhelmed by the response and the number of votes that came in for our first ever travel awards.

We want to thank everyone for participating and congratulate them for being recognised as one of the top performers in their category.

South Africa is a premiere destination, with world class offerings, and it shows in the numbers with international visitors to South Africa is growing by 30 percent year-on-year.

Shelton was joined by a delegation of Cheapflights colleagues, who over the course of a three-day visit met with a number of tourism industry stakeholders and partners to better understand the South African travel market, and discuss the benefits of the Cheapflights metasearch products to both businesses and consumers here.

Cheapflights has seen a 69 percent increase in demand over the last 12 months, across its web and app platforms, and revenue growth of 131 percent – evidence, he believes, of a growing wanderlust in the Rainbow Nation.

The falling value of the Pound, and the increased competition that platforms like ours bring to a market, are all good news for South African travellers.

By giving them accurate and timely information on the best value flights when they are searching, we help them to make the best choices simplifying what can be a daunting and confusing process, and giving them to confidence to make a purchase.

The 2016 Cheapflights Inaugural Travel Awards featured a keynote address delivered by Enver Duminy, CEO of Cape Town Tourism, who provided insight into the current developments in Cape Town and surrounds.

Cheapflights.co.za also partnered with Africa Geographic and Travel Massive for the first time.

The winners of the 2016 Cheapflights Inaugural Travel Awards were:

Best Airport

OR Tambo International Airport

Best Airline Lounge:

Emirates at Cape Town International

Best Local Airline:

South African Airways

Best Airline in Africa:

Air Namibia

Best Int’l Airline:

Emirates

Best Car Hire:

Avis

Best Hotel Chain:

Tsogo Sun

Best City Boutique:

One & Only

SOUTH AFRICA: Best And Worst Car Rental Companies In South Africa

Car market information site, Carinfo.co.za has reviewed local car rental companies in a bid to fish out the best service in the country.

The site, which offers information about the car industry, including reviews and free online car insurance quotes, looked at the six major South African car rental agencies: Avis, Budget, Europcar, Hertz, Tempest and Thrifty.

The first metric looked at the number of locations each company has; the second was which services the companies offer; and the third metric included consumer ratings of each service.

It then used a simple point system to score the companies (winner – 5 points, runner up – 4 points and third place – 3 points), to determine a winner.

Carinfo said it specifically avoided price as a metric, due to the multitude of variables which ultimately affect the final price of a rental.

These include the age of the driver, the kind of car for rent, the length of rental, location of pick-up, and others. “All of these will effect your final pricing,” Carinfo said.
How the companies performed

Car rental locations

South Africa is dominated by two car rental companies when it comes to physical presence. Avis has the highest number of locations, at 98, followed by Budget, with 91.
Company Locations
Avis-------------98
Budget-----------91
Europcar---------65
Hertz------------37
Tempest----------28
Thrifty----------22

Services offered

Services were broken down into 10 categories, including loyaly programs, child seats, luxury cars, accident services, and others.

Avis and Europcar tied for the top spot in the category, followed by Budget and Hertz in second and third, respectively.

Customer Satisfaction

Customer reviews were sourced from consumer portal, Hellopeter, looking at positive and negative reviews, and scoring companies based on the percentage of positive reviews in total.

Carinfo noted that users were more likely to report a negative experience than a positive one, and that most consumers probably don’t make frequent use of rental services, so a single negative experience would stand out.

Nevertheless, based on the data, Hertz had the best customer feedback, followed by Avis and Tempest.
Conclusion

Taking all the data into account, Carinfo named Avis as the best car rental company in South Africa, with a total of 14 points.

Budget, Europcar and Hertz tied for second, with 8 points each, and Hertz placed third, with 3 points.

Carinfo emphasised that its review was not necessarily a scientific one, but rather served to provide data as fairly as possible, to help consumers make more informed decisions when it comes to renting cars.