This edition of This Tourism Week is brought to you by Houston Travel Marketing. Join them in Holland and England immediately after this year’s ITB – see details below or go here

We’re in the middle of a drought here in the Southern Cape: Sedgefield came this close to running out of water a few weeks ago, and yesterday’s Herald reported that Knysna’s only got about 20 days’ of grace (although we did have a few drops of rain last night – but not enough. Not enough. While in Jozi, Nick tells me, it’s flooding).

And the grass in the veld here is as brown as Gauteng in the winter – but this is the Garden Route, which got its name from its natural greenery and not (as more than one visitor has innocently asked) because of its man-made gardens.

Twenty years ago – even fifteen years ago – you never saw or heard a thunderstorm here. This year alone I’ve heard about eight – and it’s only the middle of February.

And (I could go on and on with this, but permit me just one more example) – I was once one of the proud owners of the Kingfisher Ferry on which I took bird-watching tours on the Touw River in the Wilderness National Park.

But then in May of ’96, fires stripped the land of its cover and, later in that same year, flooding silted the river – and I had nothing left to float my boat.

My partners and I got off lightly: we lost a business. Pity the poor Australians who’ve lost their loved ones and a whole lot of property and all those animals in the fires of the past few days.

My point, of course, is that when climate change isn’t killing us, it’s hitting us in the pocket, kicking us in the nuts and slapping us in the face. Every one of us.

But some of us do seem, at last, to have picked up on the problem and there are those who’re doing something about it (and when I say at last, think on this: I’m fifty – but when I was in primary school, one of our teachers told us the world was running out of water. FORTY YEARS AGO! My word: that was one prescient teacher [and I say THAT partly because I’ve always wanted to use the word ‘prescient’ in a sentence]).

Although I’m not sure who ‘they’ are, they say that the only time you get anything done in this world is when there’s political will, so my congratulations go out to the Eden District’s executive Mayor, Rudi Laws, who got a whole lot of folks together last week for a conference on just this subject at Mossel Bay’s Diaz Strand Hotel and Resort (the Eden District, by the way, covers the Garden Route and Little Karoo. But you knew that).

And what Clr Laws did was to get the mayors of the individual towns in the region to join him in signing the Eden Declaration on Climate Change – which binds them and their Councils to a slew of important short- and long-term targets for things like emissions reductions (and he told met that his Council had budgeted to replace his official mayoral gas guzzler with a hybrid in the next financial year – which kinda puts his ratepayers’ money where his mouth is. And coming from a politician, that’s refreshing. In fact, if all politicians did that – put our money where their mouths are – that alone would totally reverse climate change, wouldn’t it…?).

Well, Mossel Bay Tourism is one body that takes climate change seriously, and so, on their behalf, I’ve loaded all the presentations from the conference – and a video of Clr. Laws’ closing address – to their site on a new page which I called – ahem – “Eden Declaration on Climate Change,” and which we put up as an educational resource for anyone who’s interested in the subject (and everyone should be interested in the subject).

I also put out a media release or two.

(Mind you, when you see what I wrote – and it’s a direct quote – you could find another clue to unravelling the problem: maybe everyone’s moving so slowly on climate change because they’re tryin’ to figure out what their politicians are sayin about it? “In his closing address to the Summit (which was presented jointly by the Eden District Municipality and PetroSA), Clr Laws said that, ‘With the signing of this declaration, we pledge to find all forms of capacity and resources to ensure that the learning outcomes of this Summit will produce tangible deliverables to uphold the integrity of the natural and receiving environment; and in doing so, ensure that our social and economic dimensions are sustained and strengthened’.”

(huh?).

Still, he’s a good man, Rudi Laws, and he’s a friend of tourism. Respect for doing for our industry – and for climate change – what he has because as they say (and yes, I know you know I don’t know who ‘they’ are): every journey begins with a single step.

I just wonder if this one’s begun too late…

ps: If you only read one of the presentations, read the heartfelt musings of good Fred Orban, who is a developer, a tourism professional and a conservationist (and yes, they can all exist in a single person’s body). To download ‘A Citizen’s Perspective: The Impact of Climate Change On Human Well Being,’ click here.
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Jobs in Tourism

My Jobs in Tourism page is crackling! Remember the “extraordinary marketer” I told you about last week? Sold. He’s starting his new job on Monday…

… and remember that if you’re looking for a job, you can download Young Hotelier’s (www.younghotelier.com) pdf ‘Hotel Jobs: A Hotelier’s Guide To Job Hunting In The New Online World’ by Jitendra Jain – here:
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And in the meantime… have a GREAT Tourism Week

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Join Houston Travel Marketing in Holland and England

In the tough times that we’re facing, it’s so important to maintain your international sales and marketing initiatives – and with this in mind, Houston Travel Marketing offers some very cost-effective marketing opportunities for networking with tour operators and other important tourism professionals in Holland and the UK immediately after this year’s ITB.

Spotlight Holland Workshops – Monday 16 and Tuesday 17 March in Utrecht and Rotterdam.

This is the fourth year in which Houston Travel Marketing Services has linked up with Holland-based Tourism Africa (Niel Venter and Anneli Bronkhorst) to organise our Spotlight on Holland workshops in Utrecht and Rotterdam. We’ve chosen Utrecht as it offers convenient rail connections for members of the trade based in Central Amsterdam, Eastern and Northern Holland. Rotterdam (the main commercial centre of The Netherlands) is also convenient for operators in the Southern part of Holland and in The Hague.

Total cost: Euro1800.00 for both workshops.

London & South-East England Workshops – Thursday 19 and Friday 20 March 2009

Our Friday morning networking workshop in Central London (Royal Garden Hotel Kensington) will feature pre-scheduled appointments with 40 to 50 major tour operators and travel agencies.

We have teamed up with AMG Events – which handles a number of blue-chip tourism clients and has established Network Namibia as one of the major dates on the UK tourism calendar.
The key advantage of this format is that AMG Events will personally target and talk to the top tour operators and travel agencies to actively encourage them to attend and make appointments with exhibitors.

Our Thursday evening workshop will be held at the Holiday Inn in Brighton and will target tour operators and travel agents in South East England (Sussex and Kent) – an important source market for Africa travel. This will be a traditional, free-flow workshop.

Total cost – GBP1100 for both workshops

Visit www.houstonmarketing.co.za for full details on all Spotlight Workshops scheduled for 2009.

Arabian Travel Market Dubai (5 – 8 May)

Only three booths left! The South Africa stand is being organised by our Consulate in Dubai – join 30 blue-chip South African companies to gain high end business from the Middle East and the Gulf.

Bookings: Derek Houston, Houston Travel Marketing Services
Telephone: 0027 12 665 0896 / 665 1191 / 665 2323
Fax : +27 12 665 1677
Mobile 082 464 0901
derek@houstonmarketing.co.za