Kulula holidays relaunches booking platform as travel recovers
Kulula Holidays, a Comair Travel brand, has relaunched its platform with new features that make it easier and cheaper for travellers to plan and book domestic and international holidays.
“Under the restrictive conditions of the pandemic, we reinvented kulula holidays so we could offer South Africans real savings and convenience when travel opened up. Finally, the outlook is positive and we’re happy to relaunch kululaholidays.com,” said Head of Travel at Comair Deolinda Da Silva.
At the core of the platform is “dynamic packages”. A first in South Africa, dynamic packages give travellers full control over all aspects of booking holiday packages, including selecting and bundling flights and hotels of their choice.
With dynamic packages, kulula holidays aims to be the market leading provider of Mauritius holiday packages and is adding more international destinations, including the Maldives, to the platform soon. Where competing holiday package providers are fixed in terms of the flights, hotels and availability they offer, kulula’s dynamic packages serve options from multiple suppliers in a single search. Travellers simply input their desired destination and travel dates, and kulula holidays returns all available airlines and hotels, resorts and lodges. Travellers can select their preferences for each section of the trip independently and are not limited by pre-defined dates, prices and products.
“Dynamic packages bring holiday bookers flexibility, affordability and transparency they haven’t had before,” Da Silva said. “Crucially, the technology guarantees savings at a time when confidence is understandably low.”
The new platform was developed in collaboration with Move, an AI travel booking technology. Odette Faling, South Africa CEO for Move, said, “Until now, it wasn’t possible for consumers to build holiday packages on their own. Now, the platform brings a new user experience to the market that enables travellers to book their entire holiday package in one place, and confirm everything in one payment, at the best prices.”
Eighty percent of all bookings made on kululaholidays.com are holiday packages including at least a combination of flights and hotels in the bundle. Interest in Mauritius, a perennial favourite for South Africans, faded following the spread of Omicron and subsequent border closures. Following the lifting of restrictions on 7 January, BA Comair, a sister brand of kulula holidays, has doubled its frequency to Mauritius from Johannesburg with flights departing every Tuesday and Saturday; a third weekly flight will commence in March and depart every Thursday.
Locally, kulula holidays says demand for domestic travel is encouraging with Cape Town remaining a firm favourite. For example, comparing January 2022 against December 2021, searches for travel between Durban and Cape Town increased by sixty seven percent. “Working with Move, we’ve added over 5000 domestic accommodation choices to the platform,” Da Silva said.
The optimism is echoed in a recent market analysis of South Africa by global travel distribution platform Amadeus. Insights based on real time bookings made since 1 January 2022 show:
Mauritius is the most booked international destination. Confirmed forward bookings in 2022 show that April, July, September and December are the most popular months South Africans travel to Mauritius. Confirmed forward bookings in 2022 show that Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Gqeberha and George are the most booked domestic destinations. Cape Town will receive the most visitors (based on total volume of bookings made since 1 Jan 2022) in April, October and December 2022.
Kulula holidays works on any device and a holiday can be booked and paid for (via credit card or EFT) in under five minutes. Customer support is provided by kulula holidays agents, and an emergency support service operates 24/7.
