The 11th International Conference on Responsible Tourism in Destinations (RTD11) will be held on the 14th and 15th April 2015 at the Cape Town International Convention Centre alongside WTM Africa 2015.
RTD11 presents an opportunity to reflect on what has been achieved in Cape Town, South Africa and elsewhere around the world, to document good practices applied by different producer groups, and set the agenda for change for the next 10 years.
The conference will result in a “Responsible Tourism Practitioner’s guide to realising Responsible Tourism in destinations” – reflecting the input from keynote speakers, panelists and delegates.
This year’s conference line-up will include the following International Speakers:
- Matthias Leisinger, Vice-President of Corporate Responsibility, Kuoni Group, Switzerland. Matthias Leisinger has been with Kuoni since 2003. He initially served as a project manager in the Environmental Affairs unit of Kuoni Switzerland, which was later restructured to a Group-level function. He was appointed Vice-President of Corporate Responsibility for the Kuoni Group in 2008. Matthias Leisinger is also a member of the advisory boards of the Swiss Import Promotion Programme (SIPPO) and of Swisscontact, and has been chairman of “The Code”, an organization which fights the sexual exploitation of children in the tourism sector, since 2010.
- Manisha Pande, Director and General Manager, Village Ways, India. Together with her husband and friends they started the first Village Ways initiative in the Himalayan foothills mainly to stop the increasing depopulation of the local rural communities of Binsar, as villagers left to find work in towns and cities. This first project established a much-needed new income stream through community-owned tourism. Over the years, she gained experience working with many aspects of village communities and has combined this knowledge with her creative skills to bring remote tourism to the international market, promoting community-based stays in the states of Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Kerala and Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, with a roll out of further community tourism enterprises in the years to come.
- Adama Bah, ASSET Gambia, Gambia. Adama Bah worked as a hotelier for 25 years and in 1995 formed a small advocacy group in Gambia known as Gambia Tourism Concern (GTC). During a GTC Workshop on Community Based Tourism Enterprises the idea of creating a trade association of small scale enterprises in tourism (ASSET) emerged. Adama co-founded the Institute of Travel and Tourism of Gambia and has been the Chairman of the board of directors since it was founded in 2008. Furthermore Adama Bah founded the International Centre for Responsible Tourism-West Africa. It was established as a network of tourism professionals and regional training centre in West Africa to help in the training of a significant number of Gambian and West African men and women on issues of Responsible Tourism.
Visit to RTD11 to find out more about our other international and South African speakers.
The 11th International Conference on Responsible Tourism in Destinations is hosted by the City of Cape Town and supported by RT Cape Town, Hotel Verde, Turkish Airlines, V&A Waterfront, Avis, and ImpactChoice.
Registration is now open. There are limited seats available to attend. Book your seat at the RTD11 Conference for only R 2280, including VAT. Contact Rene@ThebeReed.co.za to secure your seat today!
