Speakers
President, ATTA
Chris was born and grew up in the UK and was bitten by the Africa bug on a family holiday to Kenya. He has travelled Africa extensively having travelled overland from London to South Africa before ending up working in a variety of roles within the travel industry based in the UK both from the Travel Agency and Tour Operator side.
In early 2005 Chris was given the opportunity to move to Cape Town to grow the South African office of UK Based Tour Operator Acacia Adventure Holidays. Now back in the UK Chris is CEO of the African Travel and Tourism Association (ATTA), a trade association focused on promoting tourism to Africa from all corners of the world with over 650 members spread across 49 countries globally.
Founder, Facilit8 Namibia
Nrupesh has been providing marketing and digital strategies for companies in Namibia, and focusing on business development for tourism companies and bringing disruption to the Namibian Tourism Industry by looking at new ways to improve the tourism industry and find new solutions to bring to Namibia, to improve the overall tourism infrastructure.
Nrupesh is also the founder of Local Tourism Is Lekker platform for local tourism in Namibia, which is the only platform currently serving the local tourism industry, while the country figures out the way forward in terms of opening up to tourism. In just 3 months the platform is now listing almost 90% of the local establishments and operators who offer deals for local citizens and at the same time taking the occupancy from 1% to 14%.
Founder and Managing Director, Zulu Nomad
Phaka is a seasoned strategist, and a hands-on operational lead with vast experience in the implementation of strategic change initiatives in Africa, Europe and Asia. The founder of Zulu Nomad, a digital services business servicing the tourism industry, Phaka has over four years of operational presence in the African travel market and over seven years in change management and digital transformation
consultation.
Phaka believes that technology innovation is a necessary enabler to true transformation and inclusion in the tourism sector, as such in 2019, Zulu Nomad launched the inaugural Africa Travel Hackathon, a movement poised to be a catalyst in the rise of tourism start-ups in South Africa and on the continent. In the wake of the Covid-19 crisis, Zulu Nomad launched the Digital Skills and 4IR Masterclass for Tourism and Hospitality Entrepreneurs, an online training course aimed at enabling SMME’s to up-skill and best position themselves for recovery in the new normal.
Co-founder & Chief Operating Officer, Arival
Bruce started his career in the travel industry when he founded Moguls Mountain Travel, a leading ski tour operator in the 80’s, 90’s and early 00’s. Combining his passion for skiing and the mountains with his entrepreneurial spirit, Moguls was a dream job. In 1994, Bruce “discovered” the Internet and digital marketing for travel became his next big thing. After selling Moguls, Bruce joined Phocuswright, a global research and events company. As head of sales and marketing at Phocuswright, he was responsible for the revenue growth that led to the successful sale of the company to the Northstar Travel Group. Bruce has been a travel industry consultant and startup advisor for over a decade and now leads the business development, marketing and strategy for Arival.
Arival is the global research, insights and events company for the tours, activities, attractions and experiences industry. Arival produces the leading events in the world for the In-Destination sector including events in the U.S., Europe, APAC and Dubai.