Speakers
Founder, SoulTravelers
Penny Ndlela is the Founder and Business Catalyst of Soul Traveller Tours, a member of the Thebe Tourism Group. Soul Traveller Tours is the first Group Travel Tour Operator in South Africa, focused on changing the narrative of how Travellers engage with places and spaces through storytelling.
As a recipient of the 2002 Business Women of the Year Award, Penny has been the successful owner of her own Marketing Company, head-hunted by Ogilvy SA and remains an independent Non-Executive Director for DSV SA. Using her years of entrepreneurial experience and passion for travel, Soul Traveller Tours started out as an outbound faith-based travel operator to places like, Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Ethiopia.
Through her years of travel, Penny felt that there was a gap in the tourism industry for authentic experiences. She wanted to be able to afford everyone the valuable experience of connection, cultural immersion and personal insights that arise out of emotive and soulful interactions. Through this passion, Soul Traveller Tours has evolved into homing in on the African Traveller. It expresses the importance of connection and exploration of the African Continent by its people. It aims to connect people to people and people to spaces, while impacting communities through direct trade with the local tourism providers.
Founder, Away to Africa
Founder of Away to Africa, Tiffanie Anderson, is a licensed Attorney and Professor who spends the majority of her time on the continent of Africa and in Jamaica. Within the past few years, Tiffanie travelled and explored 11 African countries and her goal is to travel to all 55 African nations.
The idea behind Away to Africa was born after Tiffanie was given the wonderful opportunity of studying abroad at the University Of Western Cape Law School in Cape Town, South Africa. Upon her return to the states, Tiffanie could not stop talking about her engaging experiences in the Motherland; encouraging her friends to also take part in discovering the true beauty that wasn’t being highlighted elsewhere. She had several friends in which decided to go and see for themselves and who also fell in love, found jobs and relocated.
Ten years after her first trip to Africa, Tiffanie launched Away to Africa, a platform dedicated to providing an affordable, safe way for individuals to visit Africa and experience the many different countries that make up the rich land that many of us consider home.
Tiffanie also emphasizes the warm familiar feeling of being at home. She relates the smell and feel of Africa to that of a homely house and a mother’s hug. Also being amazed at how all the history that has ever been written could actually be experienced in physical form getting first-hand knowledge on the state our ancestors were in before leaving their precious homeland.
Tiffanie’s main goal is to provide travelers with memorable and exciting encounters ranging from the endless learning opportunities to networking for business and enjoying the rich entertainment Africa has to provide.
CEO, Soul Society 101 | Global Royalty
In 2012 Rondel Holder began on his quest to see the world but quickly realized that there were no travel reviews or stories from the perspective of the Black traveler, so he began sharing his travels on social media. It wasn’t long before he realized that like him, Black people across the U.S. and the world were craving travel content and guidance from someone that looked just like them. Under the moniker, Soul Society 101, Rondel begancreating a voice for the under-served Black traveler, providing the opportunity to be seen and heard on his website and social media. Since then, Soul Society 101 has developed into Soul Society 101 – The Podcast and video content including his docu-series, HERITAGE JOURNEY, where Rondel Holder is tracing his roots in Africa and Global Royalty, a travel concierge company where Rondel curates personalized trips to Africa for Black people in America.
Featured in publications such as the New York Times, New York Daily News, Black Enterprise, BET and more, Rondel has now visited over 60 countries and continues to push the culture, engaging daily with his reach of over 100,000 Black travel and culture enthusiasts, and striving to create more opportunities for Young Black Professionals & Creatives to positively impact the world as global citizens.
The Moderator
CEO, Africa Tourism Association
Naledi K. Khabo is a corporate strategy leader with over 25 years’ experience within Operations, Marketing & Technology. Having developed and implemented countless of global innovative multimedia brand initiatives, she possesses a rare combination of exceptional business and technology acumen and the ability to translate complex technical concepts for practical business applications.
Naledi currently serves as Chief Executive at the Africa Tourism Association (ATA), a global trade association promoting travel and tourism to Africa and strengthening intra-Africa partnerships. ATA serves both the public and private sectors of the international travel and tourism industry. Naledi is passionate about the intersection of marketing and emerging technologies, and is excited about this intersection and great opportunities within the tourism sector. Her diverse background lends a fresh perspective to ATA’s approach to promoting tourism to and within Africa.
During her tenure at ATA, Naledi has led the organization through significant operational changes including a complete re-branding of the organization and launching several new digital platforms to serve the hospitality and tourism industry, including ‘thexchange.africa’ which was recently launched in response to the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on the hospitality, tourism, and meetings industry.