Justice Malala - considered Africa’s foremost political commentator and analyst -took to the stage at the second edition of ILTM (International Luxury Travel Market) Africa today, for the ILTM Africa Opening Forum at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) in Cape Town.
As the first event for Africa Travel Week, the ILTM Opening Forum was moderated by international global business speaker Alex Granger, who welcomed Cape Town’s Deputy Mayor, Alderman Ian Neilson. He thanked the organisers for providing a platform for their travel industry to come together to do business and engage with so many international buyers. “We know that the events during Africa Travel Week will help us with our trade and of course our tourism industry,” Neilson said.
Granger then introduced Malala, who addressed Hosted Buyers and exhibitors in the packed auditorium with stories of life in South Africa during apartheid when he commented that “no-one would have wanted to bring a client to this country before 1994” and yet last year, the democracy welcomed 33.8m visitors compared to only 6.7m in 1990. Receipts from tourism in 2012 reached US$36 billion. Entertaining the audience with his life experiences, Malala also showed statistics to prove that the number of Africa’s super rich had grown by 11.1% in 2010 alone - the fastest growth of any country. He also observed that 4 trillion rand will be spent on roads and infrastructure in the next 15 years.
A series of live debates followed with 3 of the world’s leading Travel Editors from Conde Nast Traveller India and the US plus the Sunday Times in the UK. They gave tips to the exhibitors on how to present their products to international media, how editors pick a story, how they select their “hotlists” and what it takes to decide a travel feature. They now also need to focus on showing the ‘authenticity’ of their experiences to their readers.
‘Leading the Way’ - a debate on the vital issues of conservation followed. Bringing together two of the continent’s renown guides including Botswana’s Map Ives of Wilderness Safaris - an expert and professional guide in the area for the last 20 years who shared his passion and knowledge alongside South Africa’s Juan Pinto, Director and Head Ranger at Royal Malewane Lodge. The debate also featured Africa and luxury expert journalist Lucia van der Post, columnist for the FT’s How to Spend it and Michael Lutzeyer, owner of Grootbos Nature Reserve.
They spoke about the plight facing Africa’s conservation and how tourism and monies generated from tourism can help protect the future of Africa for all.
Following the ILTM Opening Forum, luxury travel experiences from across the African continent started over 4400 business appointments – over 70% more than at ILTM Africa 2013 - with international hosted buyers from 31 countries, each specialising in creating and planning inbound luxury travel to Africa for their high net worth clients.
ILTM’s Senior Exhibition Director, Alison Gilmore commented:
“This was a great start to the second ILTM Africa. We were delighted by the attendance, but most importantly by the quality of speakers so passionate on why Africa is the biggest luxury travel opportunity of the immediate future and so eloquent on the defining issues that face its sustainable development.”
ILTM Africa continues at the CTICC and closes at 5pm on Wednesday 30 April. For further information, please see www.iltm.com/africa or follow @ILTM_events.
ILTM Africa is one of three co-located travel industry events that form Africa Travel Week 2014 (www.africatravelweek.com: 28 April – 3 May) in Cape Town. The other events are IBTM Africa (Incentive, Business Travel & Meetings) 28 - 30 April, and WTM Africa (World Travel Market), which will take place from 2 – 3 May.
