Keynote speakers

An economist by training, David Frost worked for the COSATU trade union movement, prior to joining The Premier Group in 1994.  David ended up as head of Corporate Strategy, as well serving as a director on the boards of Premier Food Industries and Sodexho.  He was seconded as Special Advisor on Tourism to Ministers Jordan and Moosa by the Business Trust.  He joined Tourvest in 1999 and was promoted to Managing Director of the Inbound Division.  David established his own bespoke consultancy – the Tourism Strategy Company in 2001 and has consulted widely to leading private sector companies, as well as developed destination strategies, for a number of SADC countries.  The most successful of these was for Namibia, where David was retained by the Namibian Tourism Board to execute the strategy he had developed from 2003 – 2007.  He is a former Advisor – Africa to the World Travel & Tourism Council.  David serves as a director on the board of the Tourism Business Council of South Africa and is a former Board member of South African Tourism.  He has been at the helm at SATSA since September 2013.

Prof Marina Novelli (FASC, Leverhulme International Fellow) is Professor of Marketing and Tourism at the University of Nottingham Business School in the UK. She is a globally renowned expert in tourism for sustainable development, with extensive experience in advising organisations such as the World Bank, the EU, the UN, the Commonwealth Secretariat, the British Council, National Tourism Boards, Regional Development Agencies, private sector and NGOs. She writes about international tourism, policy, planning and development globally, she is an Africa specialist, and she is behind the conceptualisation of niche tourism as a field of enquiry amongst many other things. As a particularly active member of the global tourism community, she distinguishes herself for her inclusive research leadership practice and excellence in collaborating with multi-disciplinary, multi-stakeholders and multi-cultural teams in some of the most vulnerable and complex settings around the world and in Africa particularly where she has worked in 28 countries. She is Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, Fellow of the International Academy for the Study of Tourism, Member of the World Economic Forum Global Future Council for Sustainable Tourism and Alternate Member of the UN Tourism – World Committee for Tourism Ethics.

Alwijn Dippenaar has been actively involved in the Adventure Tourism Industry since 2014. He is the founder of Adventures Garden Route with the focus on marketing adventure tourism of the Garden Route on international platforms. Exhibitor at tourism trade shows in Spain, Nederlands, Germany and Russia. Exhibitor at the Adventure Travel World Summit in Japan. Currently a member of the International Adventure Travel Trade Association. He has arranged two adventure conferences / expos for the Garden Route and has done extensive research on the adventure industry in the Garden Route including type of adventure products, new product development, responsible tourism, green tourism, sustainability, marketing of adventure industry and better understanding of the adventure tourist.