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African Tourism Board : First three source markets revealed

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The African Tourism Board is active in promoting the African Continent as one destination in the United States, Israel, and India. ATB invited three PR and marketing experts from these three source markets to speak at the ATB launch event on April 11 during WTM in Cape Town.

African Tourism Board Members will be invited to receive a full fledge representation through ATB offices in New York, Tel Aviv and Delhi on a national, regional or local basis Stakeholders including CVB’s, hotels and safari/ tour operators can also participate independently.

In addition,  ATB is already talking to partners in various European countries and China.

Services will include a phone hotline, effective media outreach,  sales missions, and local events. Each office will have the capacity to start with at least 10 African companies or destination and can expand as needed. Acceptance is based on a first comes first basis.

The cost-sharing concept should lower the investment for up to 90% compared to current models of independent and competing marketing representations. It would allow medium to smaller companies and destinations to stay competitive.

“The idea is not only to save money but also to offer Africa tourism without borders.  We are not planning to compete with national tourism offices, but like to enhance services and offer an effective outreach also for those that didn’t have the opportunity due to budget restraints.

Our connection with media, trade, and influencers is a win-win for Africa. We are excited,” said interim Chairman Juergen Steinmetz.

For more information on the African Tourism Board and on how to join or participate at the launch go to www.africantourismboard.com

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Crime is out of control and rampant in Waikiki: Let’s make it unwelcoming for homeless

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The perception is that crime is out of control and rampant in Waikiki. We want to make Waikiki unwelcome and uncomfortable for homeless people.

Crime is not out of control, according to Susan Ballard, Chief Honolulu Police Department.”Waikiki is a safe location for visitors and residents.”

However, the police chief together with Jerry Dolak, president of the Hawaii Hotel Visitors Industry Security Association wants to make sure Waikiki is an unwelcoming and uncomfortable place for the homeless to hang out.

Today the Hawaii Lodging and Tourism Association Security Conference at the Hawaii Prince Hotel in Honolulu brought security experts and leaders of the Waikiki hotel business together.

“Our Competitive edge is safety and security. One incident can change this,” said Mufi Hannemann, Hawaii Lodging & Tourism Association, President & CEO.

The Honolulu Police Department is training officers in communication, conflict resolution, and re-de-escalation. Crisis intervention training (CIT) of the Honolulu Police Department (HPD) officers is to identify individuals in crisis or living with mental disabilities, like many within the homeless community.

The HPD emphasizes building relationships with the community and businesses. They encourage officers to get out of their cars and talk to the community and businesses to facilitate open communication and relationships, this can reduce crimes.

There are groups, not gangs in Waikiki. There is no organized crime, however, there are delinquent juvenile groups from other parts of Oahu.

Most of the discussion this morning was about the homeless problem. Lack of mental health care, the attractiveness to receive handouts the State of Hawaii doesn’t have but most homeless people on the Island of Oahu love is in Waikiki. Tourists do not want to see them, but many feel sorry, but businesses see them as a pest.

Bob Finley, chair of the Waikiki Neighborhood Board felt the hotels are trespassing  “them” and now “they” are on our doorstep at residential condominiums buildings.

Police officers explained how a homeless person could effectively have trespassed, so HPT could arrest such a violator. A member of the audience suggested for the courts to trespass any homeless convicted of such a crime to be no longer allowed in Waikiki altogether. This would slowly clean and isolate the 2-mile long tourist center from those that have no home to go home to.

Justin Philipps, the Homeless Outreach Manager of the Institute for Human Services explained the success of a program to provide transportation for homeless people to leave the State. He explained the homeless person has to pay half of the airline ticket, and we provide the other half.

Jessica Lani Rich, president, Visitor Aloha Society documented two cases where homeless with mental conditions attack tourists, in one case almost killed a visitor who came to attend a wedding and instead ended up in a hospital and is now disabled for the rest of her life.

“Tourism is everyone’s business in this State, even if you don’t live in Waikiki or work directly in this business.”, said Juergen Steinmetz, a long time resident of Hawaii and CEO of the eTN Corporation. “Chasing homeless people from one street to another, not forcing seriously mentally ill people to get treatment is putting our economy and our visitors at risk.

“The State has to find the money needed to help a homeless person and provide a chance to enter society. Tourism stakeholders must push legislators to provide the money and methods to help resolve this issue once and for all. The tourist industry should use its power and profits to push the State to act effectively. Someone has to take ownership of the problem, and it cannot be only well-meaning charities, churches, and other nonprofit organizations.”

Travel News | eTurboNews

African Tourism Board tackles visitor surety to keep Africa safe for visitors

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The official launch of the newly-founded African Tourism Board is only two weeks away, and the U.S.-based interim Chairman Juergen T. Steinmetz explained the organization’s commitment to keep Africa safe for visitors.

“Knowing weak points and confronting problems is the best approach.”

The African Tourism Board is working with Dr. Peter Tarlow to offer his decades of knowledge and workable approach to African members in the public and private travel and tourism industry.

ATB invited Dr. Tarlow to deliver a keynote address at the upcoming African Tourism Board launch event on April 11 during World Travel Market.

A variety of international speakers are on the impressive list of the launch event. ATB will be introducing an African-based president, while the US-based interim chairman Juergen Steinmetz will stay on as an advisor as he hands over leadership to the new president.

Among the speakers are Dr. Peter Tarlow, head of certified.travel, which had recently merged activities with eTN Corporation.

Dr. Peter Tarlow has been working for over two decades with hotels, tourism-oriented cities and countries, and both public and private security officers and police in the field of tourism security.

Tourism and More international staff includes some of the leading experts in the field. Dr. Peter Tarlow is a world-renowned expert in the field and a highly-published author.

Dr. Peter E. Tarlow is an internationally-recognized speaker and expert specializing in the impact of crime and terrorism on the tourism industry, event and tourism risk management, and tourism and economic development. Since 1990, Dr. Tarlow has been aiding the tourism community with issues such as travel safety and security, economic development, creative marketing, and creative thought.

Dr. Tarlow is currently consulting the travel security team for the Jamaica Ministry of Tourism.

Peter Tarlow has worked with numerous US government agencies including the US Bureau of Reclamation, US Customs, the FBI, the US Park Service, the Department of Justice, the Speakers Bureau of the US Department of State, the Center for Disease, US Supreme Court police, and the US Department of Homeland Security. He has worked with such US iconic locations as the Statue of Liberty, Philadelphia’s Independence Hall and Liberty Bell, the Empire State Building, St. Louis’ arch, and the Smithsonian’s Institution’s Office of Protection Services in Washington, DC.

Dr. Tarlow has been a keynote speaker for governors’ tourism conferences around the nation including those for Illinois, South Carolina, South Dakota, Washington State, and Wyoming.

He has addresses large-scale US government meetings for such agencies as:

  • The Bureau of Reclamation
  • The US Center for Disease Control
  • The US Park Service
  • The International Olympic Committee

On the international scene he has addressed conferences such as:

  • The Organization of American States (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Panama City, Panama)
  • The Latin American Hotel Association (Quito Ecuador, San Salvador, El Salvador and Puebla, Mexico)
  • The Caribbean Chiefs of Police Association (Barbados)
  • The International Organization for Security and Intelligence – IOSI  ((Vancouver, Canada)
  • The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Ottowa
  • The French Hotel Association CNI-SYNHORCAT (Paris)

Additionally, Dr. Tarlow is a featured speaker for numerous US embassies and with foreign tourism ministries around the world. For example, in his role as an expert in tourism security, he has worked with:

  • Vancouver’s Justice Institute  (2010 Olympic games)
  • The police departments of the state of Rio de Janeiro (2014 World Cup Games)
  • The Royal Canadian Mounted Police
  • The United Nation’s WTO (World Tourism Organization)
  • The Panama Canal Authority
  • Police forces in Aruba, Bolivia, Brazil, Curaçao, Colombia, Croatia, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Serbia, and Trinidad & Tobago

In 2013, the Chancellor of the Texas A&M system named him his Special Envoy. In 2015, the Faculty of Medicine of Texas A&M University asked Dr. Tarlow to “translate” his tourism skills into practical courses for new physicians. As such, he teaches courses in customer service, creative thinking, and medical ethics at the Texas A&M medical school.

In 2016, the international engineering firm Gannet-Fleming appointed Dr. Tarlow its Senior Security and Safety Specialist. Also in 2016, Governor Gregg Abbot of Texas named Peter as the Chairman of the Texas Holocaust and Genocide Commission. As such, he has wide experience in dealing with protest marches and other public events that touch upon that theme.

Dr. Tarlow organizes tourism security conferences around the world, including the International Tourism Safety Conference in Las Vegas along with conferences in St. Kitts, Charleston (South Carolina), Bogota, Colombia, Panama City, Croatia, and Curaçao.

He lectures and trains tourism professionals and security personnel in multiple languages on a wide range of current and future trends in the tourism industry, rural tourism economic development, the gaming industry, issues of crime and terrorism, the role of police departments in urban economic development, and international trade. Some of the other topics about which he speaks are: the sociology of terrorism, its impact on tourism security and risk management, the US government’s role in post terrorism recovery, and how communities and businesses must face a major paradigm shift in the way they do business.

Dr. Tarlow publishes extensively in these areas and writes numerous professional reports for US governmental agencies and for businesses throughout the world. He has been asked to be an expert witness in courts throughout the United States on matters concerning tourism security and safety, and issues of risk management.

As a well-known author in the field of tourism security, Dr. Tarlow is a contributing author to multiple books on tourism security, and he publishes numerous academic and applied research articles regarding issues of security including articles published in The Futurist, the Journal of Travel Research, and Security Management. His wide range of professional and scholarly articles include subjects such as: “dark tourism,” theories of terrorism, economic development through tourism, and religion and terrorism and cruise tourism. Dr. Tarlow also writes and publishes the popular on-line tourism newsletter Tourism Tidbits read by thousands of tourism and travel professionals around the world in its English, Spanish, and Portuguese language editions.

Among the books that Dr. Tarlow has authored are:

  • Event Risk Management and Safety(2002).
  • Twenty Years of Tourism Tidbits: The Book (2011)
  • Abordagem Multdisciplinar dos Cruzeiros Turísticos (co-written 2014, in Portuguese)
  • Tourism Security: Strategies for Effective Managing Travel Risk and Safety (2014)
  • A Segurança: Um desafío para os setores de lazer, viagens e turismo, 2016 published (in Portuguese) and republished in English
  • Sports Travel Security (2017)

At numerous universities around the world, Dr. Tarlow lectures on security issues, life safety issues, and event risk management. These universities include institutions in the United States, Latin America, Europe, the Pacific Islands, and the Middle East. He earned his Ph.D. in sociology from Texas A&M University and also holds degrees in history, in Spanish and Hebrew literatures, and in psychotherapy.

Dr. Tarlow has appeared on national televised programs such as Dateline: NBC and on CNBC and is a regular guest on radio stations around the US. He is the recipient of the International Chiefs of Police highest civilian honor in recognition for his work in tourism security.

Peter is a founder and president of Tourism & More Inc. (T&M). Tourism & More recently joined forces with the eTN Corporation under certified.travel.

He is a past president of the Texas Chapter of the Travel and Tourism Research Association (TTRA), and Dr. Tarlow is a member of the International Editorial Boards around the world.

For more on the African Tourism Board and the launch event in Cape Town on April 11, visit africantourismboard.com.

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Africa Tourism is hot: WTTC and the African Tourism Board are on it

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Africa Tourism is hot right now. Overlooked in the past, the tourism potential of the African continent is now becoming visible.

The first African Tourism Board (ATB) is about to be launched in Cape Town during the upcoming World Travel Market Africa in South Africa on April 11 with a list of impressive speakers, ministers, private industry leaders, and stakeholders attending.

A week before the ATB launch in Cape Town on April 11, the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) is getting ready for their annual summit in Seville, Spain. With a price tag of $4,000 for a delegate to attend the summit, WTTC is catering to the hundred largest companies in the travel and tourism industry.

Keynote speaker at the summit is none other than former US President Barack Obama who is getting paid an enormous amount of money to share his views on tourism with WTTC CEO Gloria Guevara.

In Cape Town at the African Tourism Board launch, former UNWTO Secretary General Dr. Taleb Rifai is paying his own way, and so are a number of tourism celebrities and stakeholders from both larger and smaller entities. They want to show their excitement and support for the new African Tourism Board and the potential Africa has for new tourism developments. It’s free to attend the African Tourism Board launch event.

In the last 7 days, the news on tourism growth and potential for African destinations couldn’t have been better and must have come as a surprise for many.

WTTC issued one press release after another on their research reports for Africa. eTN received such releases not only from WTTC but also from ministers, embassies, and tourism boards showing their pride and maybe their surprise and encouragement.

African Tourism Board interim Chairman Juergen Steinmetz, who is also CEO of the eTN Corporation, owner of eTurboNews, which is a media partner for WTTC, applauded Gloria Guevara, CEO of WTTC, for putting Africa in the spotlight for the world’s largest travel and tourism companies.

To attend the WTTC summit, click here; to attend the ATB launch, click here.
Anyone attending both events should indicate this on the African Tourism Board launch registration to receive additional extensive visibility.

Travel News | eTurboNews

WTTC: Travel and Tourism is Zambia’s 2018 fastest-growing national economic sector

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The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) is getting ready for its Annual Summit in Seville next month, and Africa will be happy.

Report after report is confirming enormous growth potential for the African Travel and Tourism industry.

Alongside WTTC’s good numbers, a new initiative spearheaded by the eTN Corporation is the African Tourism Board which will launch on April 11 at an ATB Conference in Cape Town, South Africa.

“This all confirms the important role Africa has established globally,” said eTN President and Interim African Tourism Board Chairman Juergen Steinmetz.

Travel and Tourism is Zambia’s 2018 fastest-growing national economic sector, contributing US$1,846.9MN (ZMK19.4 billion) to national economy, reported WTTC, and 318.9 thousand jobs to the Zambian economy in 2018 while posting a +6.3% Gross Domestic Product (GDP), making it the fastest and bullish economic sector in the country.

International visitors alone spent ZMK8.4 billion representing 8.3% of the total Zambian exports, and in terms if spending characteristics the leisure sectors account for a total of 38% while business was at 62%. Domestic spending on tourism and travel stood at 47% while international spending was 53%. The industry is estimated to create a total of 464.6 thousand jobs in 2019 with an estimated 1.1million expected international visitors in 2019.  This is according to the World Travel and Tourism Council’s annual review of the economic impact and social importance of the sector released this month.

Tsogo Sun Garden Court Hotel Kitwe Zambia – Photo courtesy of Garden Court Kitwe Management

WTTC is an international non-governmental organization which represents the Travel and Tourism private sector globally with over 170 membership that includes CEOs, chairmen, and presidents of the world’s leading Travel and Tourism businesses from across the globe covering all industries. The organization works to raise awareness of Travel and Tourism as one of the world’s largest economic sectors, supporting one in 10 jobs (319 million world wide and generating 10.4% of the world GDP in 2018).

The World Travel and Tourism Council is the global authority on the economic and social contribution of Travel and Tourism. The organization promotes sustainable growth for the Travel and Tourism sector, working with governments and international institutions to create jobs, to drive exports and to generate prosperity. Together with Oxford Economics an international consulting firm headquartered in Oxford United Kingdom and prides itself as a global leader in forecasting and quantitative analysis, produces annual research that shows Travel and Tourism to be one of the world’s largest sectors. WTTC has been producing comprehensive reports quantify, compare and forecast the economic impact of Travel and Tourism on 185 economies around the world for nearly 30 years. In addition to individual country fact sheets, and fuller country reports, WTTC produces a world report highlighting global trends and 25 further reports that focus on regions, sub-regions and economic and geographic groups.

Commenting on this extraordinary data by WTTC, Zambia’s celebrated tourism pundit Dr. Percy Ngwira stated that WTTC has revealed something that needs thorough reflection and validation in line with Zambia’s national data produced relevant national competent institutions. He was, however, quick point out that the travel and tourism sector in Zambia has indeed being growing arguably so in the past five years owing to the current governments implantations of conducive policy and commitment to develop the sector.

According to the Zambia’s Minister of Tourism and Arts Charles Banda who is also UNWTO Executive Council Chair the current Zambian government has recognized prioritized the tourism and placed it as the second most important economic sector in the country that is poised to play  a significant  role in the country’s economic emancipation towards the achievement of Zambia’s  national Vision 2030, which aims to transform the country  into a prosperous middle income nation by the year  2030 and to create a new Zambia which is a strong and dynamic middle-income industrial nation that provides opportunities for improving the well-being of all, embodying values of socio economic justice.

Recently Zambia has witnessed growing investment in the tourism sector, many new hotels have been built including Hilton Hotel group that opened a $100m luxury 20-floor mixed-use Hilton Garden Inn hotel in the Zambian capital Lusaka in 2018.

The Zambian copper rich region located near the Democratic Republic of Congo also had a new state of art hotel by Tsogo Sun of South Africa Garden Court Kitwe that was open late last year.

eTN is a media partner for WTTC.

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