[Watch] NORTH WEST MEDIA LAUNCH AND TOURISM MONTH

Intro month out and about with the department of economic development environment conservation and tourism and you know of course the honorable mec emi sigines is launching tourism month and listen no doubts that it's a very very very exciting month i'm currently joined in our studio by uh who is the chairperson of the northwest tourism business council i pronounced just a name correctly you know you pronounce it like a very very personal bed yeah i know you i could sense it are you well sir i'm very well thanks thank you so much for taking the time um to you to chat to me of course he's the chairperson of the northwest tourism business council let's talk it's so interesting for me just how broad the tourism sector actually is and i love that we get to learn even more about the sector now we are taking it from the the angle of um the business council what is the northwest tourism business council What is the Northwest Tourism Business Council and um what is the objective as well of the business council okay northwest tourism business owners council it's a group of tourism businesses within the province okay um that came together to organize themselves so that they'll be able to advocate for for tourism in the province grow the province also take initiatives man you know this thing off of waiting for somebody to come and help you sometimes it's not going to happen overnight absolutely so it's important that you take initiatives you plan you see what we can do together collaborate and grow the business of course with partnership in partnership with government you know but then we don't want to come empty-handed so that's what we're all about wow i love that fix yourself and then go with what you have and go get the necessary um intervention that's required so so you mentioned that it's it's businesses within the sector that came together so that's those are the members of the What does the Business Council do business council these are the members of the business council but you see the the northwest tourism business council we work mostly with uh of all together with the associations within the 4 districts we actually facilitate a business advocacy for for for all the businesses within the province through the through the associations um so we engage a lot with the chairpersons of associations talk the strategy and engage government and say this is where we are how can we work together how can we collaborate so that's the whole point of of us existing um yeah maybe to take you back a little bit a little bit yes we we we launched during covet when things were bad when business was not business as usual we remember the relief funds then we realized that people are struggling to get those funds because we are not organized okay so we thought let's organize ourselves so that the teacher is speaking one voice how to talk to their powers maybe about your need in one voice so that they don't get confused of who they're dealing with it's difficult to deal with individuals than dealing with an organization thank you so much for that clarity because my next question would have been if i own my small business i'm in the tourism sector how would i then utilize the services of the business council or the services How to utilize the services of the Business Council offered by the business council so i would come to you to say this these are the issues that i'm dealing with um how do you then come in there look we we have small businesses as as from a guy who's taking a tour guide okay uh to an operator to a lady who's who's owning a little bnb at the corner so it's not mainly the big businesses that you are looking at bummers and ct and so forth only we're going down to the ground yes so it's easy for people to associate and two what's important is that it's important that the people that are part of us have seen value in their businesses not us doing things for them uh-huh but together collaborating and making profits okay out of the projects that we do yes yes so so i say to you i mean last year this year we we launched the camp rupert in my campfest okay um i can tell you that we had 27 businesses that were involved from people who were doing stalls from people i think i saw that uh yeah social media yeah yeah and and i can tell you all those 27 businesses they don't involved and when we did the post meeting of the event all of them made profit wow because you're coming in and saying that guys i've got things okay set up your tent yeah and then sell your tents to your people uh-huh uh well now what do you have i've got a stall i'm selling what uh bracelets bracelets here set up your stall cellar bracelets and people make money it was a good collaboration and no one complained 27 businesses benefited beautiful and and next year we're doing it for the next five years of course but next year we want to make sure that we double the number of beneficiaries i love that what would you say is the importance of collaboration especially in the sector i mean you know we've got that mentality i if i bring someone else on board they Collaboration are gonna take from my plate right how have you seen collaboration proved to be an effective way of of of doing things now especially in the times that we live in you know i know we don't have a choice are you going to be trying yeah yeah no we don't have a choice because if we don't collaboration we collaborate we're going to fail yeah uh we need to work together we are here together we're launching launching the the tourism month in bukano we came together from our corners coming together to do one thing to sell our province we cannot sell our province by as individuals we're going to conv you can't confuse the client or the customer or the traveler so collaboration going forward especially for recovery yes it's very very important wow man i i love it thank you so much for that i mean there's no doubt obviously everybody knows that this is one of the hardest hit if not the number one hardest hit um sector you know in terms of covert 19 yeah everybody knows i think some of the popular words for today are first to close last to open everybody knows when you think tourism sector that's what comes to mind would you say that we are definitely um of course as a sector back on um in fact we've probably already now grasped a positive path towards recovery do you think things are finally after a long time starting to look up Tourism Month hey yeah you know what people want to travel yeah uh people will travel um but it helped us to rethink tourism it sounds like a cliche because it's our thing but it's the truth yeah because really there's the the normal way of doing things the old way of doing things unfortunately just does not work anymore yeah so so we we far from we far from uh the point of from recovery from recovery there are signs that uh tourism is picking up again but it's domestic tourism that is picking up and carrying this sector but in terms of an international market uh we still have a little bit of work to do because you know countries man you know you know there's perceptions especially the countries in europe and so forth about africa there's ebola in nigeria they think there's ebola everywhere in africa so there's things that we need to we need to make sure we're cut towards getting that market back into the country but we learned our lessons our lessons are a local market is very important absolutely to us and it means the way we price our packages or your bmb you must price it knowing that the local market will be the one that is going to look after you when things are bad absolutely we need to be able to afford these things i mean for the longest time the the conversation has always been that domestic travel is more expensive than uh international travel so i think for the very first time the conversation is changing and it's changing for the better and people are now opening themselves up as we wrap it up a word of encouragement is tourism month man i mean give people some advice give them a word of encouragement go somewhere and also just also just a word of encouragement for those looking to join the sector um in terms of them you know opening up businesses you know in this sector if you remember my free game back in the days you were what is it we're big we are big in events but also we also have nice attractions absolutely um people and it's not far from our main customers which is how they market yeah um it's just 30 minutes um an hour drive from through from here to holdings into here um it's important for them to to come and and and know and and explore this beautiful province of ours is we don't only have sun city we have other other products now we remove remove free deport very beautiful property with with a valve moving just next to it and there's so many experiences quite biking that you can do here but the place is has tranquility it's stunning you know um so there's so much to explore and we believe that it's going to rise again absolutely as we recover back to stability in the tourism sector love it thank you so much man of course we are still launching tourism month love that welcome if you've just joined in of course we are coming to you live from the stonehenge river lodge it's exciting times we're here with detect of course the department of enviro the department of environment conservation and tourism economic development environment conservation hey and tourism i've been getting it right all day suddenly but anyway we're still coming to you live from here do keep an eye on our socials more from our end definitely um still coming your way thank you sir thank you for taking your time to have this thank you and there you have it it's back to the music [Music] [Music] have a lovely day everybody [Music] [Applause] [Music] inn in the wild bushes of the mountain of paragliders et dumbe mountain 50 kilometers away from the blood river where impieza sanjuana was fought and won by the brave zulu warriors against the british empire and that is what makes me the zulu warrior [Music] i'm with two business owners ahmadineji who are talking all things keeping up with the latest business trends i make sure i have a full tank for the seminars in january why don't you download the fnb app what the business hub has business talk a portal with thought leadership industry news shared via videos articles