OUR SPEAKERS
Dane Forman

South African Explorer / Instagramer / Visual Storyteller / Durbanite all the way

Andy Carrie

Start Up Enthusiast/Marketing Entrepreneur. Passionate about connecting with people, photography and the occassional extreme sport. I am a creative that thrives on connection in the digital space I use visual storytelling to inspire, by means of strategic content generation.

Justin Reid

Justin is currently the Head of Destination Management Organisations for TripAdvisor for Europe, Middle East and Africa. TripAdvisor is the world’s biggest travel website with over 315 million visitors per month and over 200 million reviews. Prior to his current role, Justin worked for VisitBritain from 1999 to 2011 and was head of digital at the crucial times when they introduced www.visitbritain.com, as well as introducing social media to the organisation and www.visitbritain.tv . He oversaw the customer service department for the Americas when based in New York and helped manage the introduction of the www.VisitBritainShop.com concept. Immediately prior to joining TripAdvisor, Justin worked agency side as the Senior Digital Strategist for BP’s branding team but is now very pleased to be back within the tourism fold!

Damian Cook

CEO of E-Tourism Frontiers.

Damian Cook is the founder and CEO of E-Tourism Frontiers- a major global initiative to develop online tourism in developing markets globally. After working as a consultant in both the public and private sector developing destination websites and online marketing campaigns he formed E-Tourism Frontiers taking a practical, business driven approach to assist emerging markets around the world. He is a Director of Atta and a frequent presenter at global tourism forums. E-Tourism Frontiers has worked with 35 destinations and successfully trained over 6000 tourism professionals, small to medium businesses and tourism students and has brought leading International experts and major travel firms and intermediaries to new markets to do business for the first time. Damian has made presentations to numerous international forums, including recently the PATA Digital Academy and the 2015 Scottish Tourism Week. Each year he holds the extremely popular eTAS (E-Tourism Africa Summit) in conjunction with SA Tourism.

Alana Witte

Alana Witte leads Revinate's accelerated global growth in Africa & the Middle East, building upon Revinate's already existing 23,000 hotels in 143 countries. Before launching Revinate's Dubai and Cape Town offices, Alana served as Director of Special Projects for an investment vehicle that is a Limited Partner of Formation 8, the San Francisco based venture capital fund and anchor investor of Revinate. Alana holds a master's degree in Arabic Studies at the University of Texas, and began her career in communications and branding advisory in the MEA market predominately in the hospitality, telecoms, and governmental verticals. Given Alana’s involvement in both the hospitality industry and technology transfer, Alana is keen to engage hospitality stakeholders in Africa to explore how Revinate's Silicon Valley based innovations may augment the region's robust hospitality industry.

Dave Duarte

Dave is an entrepreneur who has a passion for teaching and travel. Named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, Dave has a proven commitment to serving society through his work. He is an avid bicycle commuter, blogger, and fan of whimsical South African road-trips.

Nicholas Hall

Nick is one of the travel industry’s leading experts on destination marketing. As founder and CEO of SE1 Media, a specialised destination consulting firm and the Digital Tourism Think Tank, Nick has worked with hundreds of destinations helping to navigate the complexities of an increasingly digital visitor experience. As a key industry figure, Nick is the organiser of many leading conferences, seminars and roundtables, such as the Digital Tourism Innovation Campus and Digital Debates at the world’s leading travel shows. Nick is also an experienced keynote speaker, frequently contributing to high-level discussions at the tourism industry’s most prestigious events. Nick is one of the youngest entrepreneurs in the tourism industry, discovering his roots as a CEO in the travel business at age twenty-two and since establishing the leading platform for destinations to exchange knowledge and best practice in digital. His contribution to the industry spans many years, including as board member on key industry bodies, Executive Director of the European Travel Commission, the preparation of pivotal European Ministerial accords and delivering ongoing thought leadership to political, institutional and industry stakeholders.

Craig Rodney

Professional sand dune driver. Creator and defender of outlandish ideas. Thinks he can still skate & snowboard.

Craig Rodney runs Cerebra, the leading social media agency in South Africa. In his spare thime. Craig runs the @southafrica account on Instagram, spends too many hours on planes, and not enough hours in the snow. In 2013, Craig and his business partner sold Cerebra to global marketing agency, Wunderman.

Jerome Touze

Jerome Touze, 35, is the Co-founder of WAYN.com (Where Are You Now?).

With over 23 million members worldwide, WAYN.com is the largest travelling social community online with members in 193 countries.WAYN allows users to discover where to travel to next and share experiences with others and generates over 50,000 travel opinions daily and over 100 million visitors every year. Jerome was an Enterprising Young Brits? Finalist; a Young Gun? class of 2007 according to Growing Business Magazine and Commended for Entrepreneur of the Year 2008 at the UK Technology Innovation and Growth Awards. More recently Jerome was a finalist at the Ernst & Young London Entrepreneur of the Year Awards. He also sits on the board of Cape Town Tourism. Prior to founding WAYN.com, Jerome was a Consultant in Telecommunications and High Tech at Accenture, working primarily on CRM solutions for major accounts such as British Telecommunications and Microsoft. He holds a BA Hons in European Management from the CESEM Business School in France and a BA Hons in Business & Finance from the University of Westminster, London. He loves travelling, Rugby and has a passion for Classical music.

Mariette Du Toit-Helmbold

Chief Destineer, Destinate

Mariette du Toit-Helmbold is an international destination marketing and tourism thought leader, a writer and public speaker on tourism, destination marketing, brand innovation and digital marketing. She established Destinate, a specialised international destination and tourism marketing agency, after an enviable tenure of almost 10 years as the CEO of Cape Town Tourism. She now works with brands and destinations within and beyond South Africa to unlock their full potential, applying her knowledge and pursuing her passion for innovative, people-centred marketing and tourism by unpacking global consumer trends, new markets, city tourism dynamics, Africa and the impact of new technology and the web on tourism.

Keith Jenkins

Keith Jenkins is the Founder and Publisher of the Velvet Escape luxury travel blog. Based in Amsterdam, Keith left his ten-year investment banking career to travel the world and carve out a new career as a travel blogger and social media advocate. He has visited more than 80 countries across six continents. In addition to being a travel blogger, Keith is the CEO of iambassador – the world’s leading international travel blogger network – a company he founded in 2011. He also speaks often at travel and social media conferences about online marketing and blogger collaboration. Keith is also the co-founder of the Global Bloggers Network, a community of more than 3,000 travel bloggers. Keith has been featured in The New York Times, BBC Travel, Lonely Planet, National Geographic Traveler, and has spoken at TEDxTalk.

Anthon Muller

Executive Head of: Enterprise Mobility Pre & Post Sales at Vodacom Business

Anthon was appointed by Vodacom Business to head up the Enterprise Mobility Pre & Post Sales division. Prior to joining Vodacom in December 2014, he held a leadership role at Samsung South Africa as well as heading up an Italian company in the USA. Anthon has more than 12 years of experience in the telecommunications industry, mainly in the enterprise space. He has deep insights and significant successes in the field of Enterprise Mobility. His core belief is to always put our people and our customers at the heart of the business, an ethos that is very much in line with Vodacom’s values.

CONVERENCE SCHEDULE