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June 2011
Urgent: submissions required for Event Greening Handbook for Gauteng
Call for examples, images and case studies: Gauteng Tourism Authority has commissioned icologie to produce an Event Greening Handbook for the Gauteng Business Tourism industry that will include Gauteng-based case studies and images. They are currently looking for images, examples and case studies of green interventions to be included in the handbook.
Venues, subcontractors/suppliers and organisers of conferences, events, exhibitions, etc, that can assist with this are requested to please make contact with Karin Diederichs at karin@icologie.com or (021) 439 3898 by Tuesday 5 July 2011.
Africa’s tourism industry needs to “future proof” itself if it wants to remain a competitive travel destination
Joyce Dimasco
“Africa’s tourism industry would be grossly negligent if it did not take measures to protect its environment,” says Joyce DiMascio, Principal of Joyce DiMascio Consulting and one of Australia’s most experienced tourism marketers. “The world wants to come to Africa because of its natural wonders. But the industry must “future proof” itself by putting responsible tourism at that heart of its industry development agenda,” she adds.
Until 2010, Joyce was the Head of Business Events Australia at Tourism Australia and led the successful rebranding of Australia as a place where environment and community really matter.
Australia, like Africa is a long-haul destination and the realisation that the country would need to take steps to meet the challenges of climate change – if it was to remain an internationally competitive travel and meetings destination – led to its turnabout strategy and focus on the environment. Core to the continued success of this strategy is ensuring that visitors leave as ambassadors of Australia’s ecological and cultural heritage – by ‘packaging’ their experiences to enrich rather than diminish the environment.
“To destroy what makes SA unique makes no business sense at all – but operators need to be given the tools to help them make responsible choices in the way they deliver the visitor experience,” says Joyce.
Joyce will be discussing how to go about equipping the local SA tourism, travel and events industry using the Australian case study as the basis of her presentation during the upcoming Environmental Management in Tourism (EMiT) conference which takes place from 9-10 November 2011 at the Sandton Sun, Johannesburg.
The conference – which serves as a dedicated platform for debate on sustainable tourism – is being held in conjunction with WTM’s World Responsible Tourism Day and the awarding of South Africa’s 10th Annual Imvelo Awards for Responsible Tourism.
For more information or to register: www.emitconference.com.
Green Drinks talk: continent’s first true green precinct
Green Drinks is excited to have Justin Bowen, Development Director at Menlyn Maine, coming to talk to the Green Drinkers about their vision for the continent’s first true green precinct.
Being built at the moment in Pretoria East, the precinct will be an open, mixed-use development, striving for Green Star and LEED certification as well as becoming a Climate Positive development (CCI – Clinton Climate Initiative).
No building is an island – and Justin will tell you how they are going about it!
Details:
Thursday, 7 July, 6:30pm
Il Giardino Restaurant, 44 Stanley Avenue
No entry fee; cash bar
Please RSVP to jutta@ecocentric.co.za.
SAACI is going green
SAACI has announced that it will be implementing measures to reduce the carbon footprint of the SAACI National Conference 2011 (24 – 26 July) in an effort to minimise its impact on the environment.
Waste, water, energy, accommodation, procurement, communication, training and local economic and social development are all key areas that SAACI will address in the hosting of its annual conference.
A Carbon Audit of the conference will also be conducted, and the steps taken to reduce the carbon footprint of the conference will be identified and listed. The aim is to use the SAACI National Conference as an incubator and real life test case on how to reduce the carbon footprint of a conference. These results will be made available to the industry to emulate.
The carbon footprint of this conference will also be used as a benchmark for the next hosts to improve on.
For more details, please download SAACI environmental statement here.
To register for the conference or to book exhibition space, please visit www.saaciconf2011.co.za. If you have any questions or suggestions, or are interested in being a sponsor for this event, please contact the Conference Chairman, Riedwaan Jacobs, on 021 408 9988 or rjacobs@globalconf.co.za.
Responsible Tourism Conference to debate environmental issues facing Southern African travel and tourism industry
The Environmental Management in Tourism (EMiT) conference, a first of its kind for the tourism, travel, leisure and event management industries, is to be held at the Sandton Sun Conference Centre from 9-10 November 2011.
Worldwide, consumer interest in responsible tourism is growing at rapid rate. So much so, that it has been identified as one of the key growth areas over the next decade.
Pro-active companies and governments are beginning to see the advantage of this and the benefits that can be gained from limiting the impact their operations have on the environment. More importantly, green travel creates a positive experience for local communities, tourism companies and the tourists themselves. [Read on...]
Ecosystem health a precondition is SA’s to grow tourism-based economy
The South African tourism industry will need to take steps to minimise its impact on the country’s finite water resources if it is to grow and maintain a tourism-based economy.
This is according to one of the country’s leading environmental advisors and specialists in water affairs, Dr Anthony Turton.
“South Africa has a water-constrained mining-based economy. Gold mining is almost at an end and so we are transitioning to a new beneficiation type of national economy in which tourism will play a major part. A necessary precondition for a successful tourism-based economy is ecosystem health and functional integrity.”
“A unit of water left in a functioning ecosystem sustaining a tourism initiative will have a return on investment that is significantly higher than a similar unit in the industrial or agricultural sector. We therefore need to start understanding the multiplier effect of water as it performs useful ecological services that will sustain our growing tourism industry. In this regard we need to value water in terms of goods and services it provides in Nature, by sustaining foreign revenue generation and job creation,” Turton says. [Read on...]
The Greenest Event
South Africa’s life support systems face unprecedented threats!
Why?
Global and local problems of population growth, resource depletion, inequality, deteriorating ecosystems, water shortages, energy supply, pollution and climate change require fundamentally different ways of living in the world and thus create opportunities for new kinds of business.
What can you do about it? [Read on...]
