Help Market South Africa – Financial Mail 2012

It was suggested in the FM cover story of April 6 that the “rich” had caused the oversupply of beds in wildlife tourism.

Peter Anderson , director of Livingstones Supply Company, a tourism services group had the following to say.

Possibly true; however, among these “rich” are people passionate about conservation and tourism who have invested resources with dreams of uplifting and empowering local communities, establishing rural tourism, protecting biodiversity and living out dreams. Wildlife tourism people are often philanthropic, as conservation and engaging rural communities are part of what wildlife tourism is all about.

 

Blood on the game path – Financial Mail 2012

Too few tourists and too many beds is hammering the game lodge sector.

Too much of a good thing can be bad, a reality a large proportion of SA’s more than 700 private game lodge operators catering for ecotourists are learning the hard way. “The game lodge sector is in dire straits,” says Colin Bell, an ecotourism industry consultant.

“There’s blood out there,” says Jan van Heteren, owner of Jaci’s Lodges, operator of two lodges under concession in North West province’s Madikwe game reserve. “No more than 5% of game lodges are making money.”

 


Executives on a wild bike ride – Financial Mail 23 August 2012

The Tour de Tuli is  fast becoming a  favourite ride for  SA corporates. Max  Gebhardt went  along to find out  why it is so popular.

Russel Friedman is a legend. A couple of weeks before the start of the Tour de Tuli, he dislocated his shoulder and separated his AC joint in a freak accident. To repair the damage he underwent surgery and had a metal plate inserted into his shoulder just two weeks before the start of what has to be one of Southern Africa’s premier four-day mountain bike tours.

An accident like this would have laid low a man half his age, yet on day one at the Limpopo Valley Camp in Botswana, there was Friedman. He was not only planning to complete the Tour de Tuli, covering 280km through three countries, he was planning to lead our group.