Victor Tharage is the Director-General (DG) of the National Department of Tourism (NDT) in South Africa. Amongst others his position as DG promotes and support the growth and development of an inclusive, competitive and responsible tourism sector, enhancing its contribution to national priorities. He also served a chairperson of the Directors-General Clusters for international relations as well as the economy. His main achievement as a DG was leading of the technical team that drove the development of the country’s Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Plan as well as working with the tourism sector on COVID19 recovery. He served on the Tourism Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment Charter Council as ex-officio member and head of the Secretariat. He also served as the National Registrar for Tourist Guides. While he was a Deputy Director General (DDG) for Policy Knowledge Services his portfolio at NDT included driving the development and implementation of the National Tourism Sector Strategy (NTSS), sector research, policy development and responsible tourism. He was also the head of the 2010 FIFA World Cup tourism preparations unit at NDT. Some of the key achievements by the sector during his tenure as a DDG have been the development of the NTSS which is the blue print for tourism growth and development, formation of key partnerships with the Public Universities and driving the national tourism research agenda, driving the development of the 2014 Tourism Act as well as the development of the Domestic Tourism Growth Strategy. He also represented South Africa on the OECD tourism committee. An applied physics graduate from the University of Durban-Westville (currently known as University of Kwa-Zulu Natal), he also holds a postgraduate degree in Knowledge and Information systems management from Stellenbosch University as well as an MBA in Innovation, Circular economy and Entrepreneurship from University of Bradford (UK). He has also attended training at institutions like Harvard University and MIT (USA), London School of Economics (UK), Galilee College (Israel) covering areas such as management, marketing data analytics, business; politics and economy as well as environmental management. A product of the legendary Mbilwi Secondary School in Limpopo, Victor is a Norton and Kaplan certified Balanced Scorecard (BSC) strategy practitioner. He is also a trained Company secretary from the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators (ICSA) and a good governance champion.
Prior to joining NDT in 2009, Victor was head of the strategy office responsible for strategy and business performance at the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT). He joined DEAT in 2001 as operations manager in the national policy unit for World Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD) preparation and subsequently driving the development of the National Strategy for Sustainable Development (NSSD). He was also part of the team that put together the only official book on the WSSD negotiations, “Ten days in Johannesburg, a negotiation of hope”. Prior to DEAT, Victor was with Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) and also spent some time in the non-profit and private sector environments.
He is married to Khuliso and they are blessed with two daughters, Tshedza and Mukundi

Jacques Stoltz is Director of Tourism at the Western Cape Department of Economic Development and Tourism where he is responsible for sector and destination research and planning, tourism regulation, tourism safety and tourism growth and development.
Previously, Jacques worked as an independent development consultant and planner specialising in destination development, planning and management with a particular emphasis on tourism infrastructure, place making, arts, culture and heritage.
He has served on the councils of Better Tourism Africa, the Heritage Association of South Africa, Egoli Heritage Foundation and was a founding member of the Heritage Monitoring Project.
He has over 20 years’ experience working on a wide range of tourism and heritage projects in the public and private sectors.
He holds an M. Phil in urban infrastructure design and management with the University of Cape Town, a post-graduate diploma of arts from the University of the Witwatersrand and a bachelor of commerce in tourism and hospitality management from the University of Pretoria.

An economist by training, David Frost worked for the COSATU trade union movement, prior to joining The Premier Group in 1994. David ended
up as head of Corporate Strategy, as well serving as a director on the boards of Premier Food Industries and Sodexho. He was seconded as
Special Advisor on Tourism to Ministers Jordan and Moosa by the Business Trust. He joined Tourvest in 1999 and was promoted to Managing
Director of the Inbound Division. David established his own bespoke consultancy – the Tourism Strategy Company in 2001 and has consulted
widely to leading private sector companies, as well as developed destination strategies, for a number of SADC countries. The most successful of
these was for Namibia, where David was retained by the Namibian Tourism Board to execute the strategy he had developed from 2003 – 2007.
He is a former Advisor – Africa to the World Travel & Tourism Council. David serves as a director on the board of the Tourism Business Council
of South Africa and is a former Board member of South African Tourism. He has been at the helm at SATSA since September 2013.

Prof Marina Novelli (FASC, Leverhulme International Fellow) is Professor of Marketing and Tourism at the University of Nottingham Business
School in the UK. She is a globally renowned expert in tourism for sustainable development, with extensive experience in advising organisations
such as the World Bank, the EU, the UN, the Commonwealth Secretariat, the British Council, National Tourism Boards, Regional Development
Agencies, private sector and NGOs. She writes about international tourism, policy, planning and development globally, she is an Africa
specialist, and she is behind the conceptualisation of niche tourism as a field of enquiry amongst many other things. As a particularly active
member of the global tourism community, she distinguishes herself for her inclusive research leadership practice and excellence in collaborating
with multi-disciplinary, multi-stakeholders and multi-cultural teams in some of the most vulnerable and complex settings around the world and
in Africa particularly where she has worked in 28 countries. She is Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, Fellow of the International
Academy for the Study of Tourism, Member of the World Economic Forum Global Future Council for Sustainable Tourism and Alternate Member
of the UN Tourism – World Committee for Tourism Ethics.

Active involvement in the Adventure Tourism Industry since 2014. Owner of Adventures Garden Route with the focus on marketing adventure tourism of the Garden Route on international platforms. Exhibitor at tourism trade shows in Spain, Nederlands, Germany and Russia. Exhibitor at the Adventure Travel World Summit in Japan. Currently a member of the International Adventure Travel Trade Association. Have arranged two adventure conferences / expos for the Garden Route. Done extensive research on the adventure industry in the Garden Route including type of adventure products, new product development, responsible tourism, green tourism, sustainability, marketing of adventure industry and better understanding of the adventure tourist.