8 November 2011
South Africa wins Three Crystal Awards at SITE 2011
Nomasonto Ndlovu, SAT's Global Manager: Business Tourism
© South African Tourism
...give evidence of South Africa’s beauty; warm, welcoming national culture; diversity; and deep, abiding commitment to green and responsible tourism. - Nomasonto Ndlovu, Head of Business Tourism at South African Tourism
DESTINATION SOUTH AFRICA excelled at the Las Vegas SITE (Society of Incentive and Travel Executives) Awards ceremony last week by walking away with three globally prestigious awards in incentive tourism.
Nomasonto Ndlovu, global head of business tourism at South African Tourism said the organisation was delighted by the wins that not only give endorsement from the world’s leaders in tourism of South Africa’s now-entrenched superiority as an incentive destination, but that also give evidence to incentive travel buyers of South Africa’s beauty; warm, welcoming national culture; diversity; and deep, abiding commitment to green and responsible tourism.
South Africa won three Crystal Awards: Most Impactful Effort Toward Corporate Social Responsibility; Best Destination-Based Experiential Incentive Travel Programme; and most Exceptional Motivational Travel Programme in Africa and the Middle East.
“The winners,” says Ndlovu, “have brought their products to the global market knowing that today’s incentive travellers and buyers want more than just luxury away from home... although the demand for a good and indulgent time remains as important as ever. Today’s incentive travellers, however, go further: they want to be empowered to experience more; to be active and to feel, whilst away on their winners trip, that they have made a difference not only in taking their reward for excellence... but also in the place they are visiting and in the activities they have taken part in whilst enjoying their reward. Incentive travellers are high achievers, after all. They like to break boundaries and do the extraordinary. They demand the best.”
Dragonfly Africa won the Best Destination Based Experience Incentive Travel Programme for the programme it put together for Fuji Xerox Australia that included walking with lions, an elephant-back safari, white water rafting and a visit to a school in Botswana that cares for HIV/Aids orphans where the group of travellers worked with staff and children to repaint the school.
The other two Crystal Awards went to Walthers for work it did for KPMG Meijburg and Co Holland and agency partner, Eventions. That particular project included social responsibility investment for the client in education of rural children whilst the delegation of incentive travellers enjoyed the excitement of a luxury Big Five Safari, demonstrating the successful motivational reward programmes can be entrenched by the inclusion of social responsibility elements that benefit both participants and the local community.
The 2011 SITE Awards were adjudicated by a panel of global experts in incentive tourism. They included Moshe Porat (Dean of the Fox School of Business Management, Tourism and Hospitality at Temple University in the US); Roger Dow (President of the US Travel Association); Peter Greenberg (Travel Editor at CBS News); Rob Davidson (University of Greenwich Business School) and Tyler Mathisen (CNBC Global).
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