@ILTM_events
#ILTMAfrica
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.
