A first for the African continent, the annual International Adventure Conference was hosted from 9-11 September 2024, in Knysna, South Africa. The event was designed to accommodate professionals, managers and business owners from the adventure tourism sector as well as researchers, academics and postgraduate students.
According to Prof Uwe P Hermann from the Tshwane University of Technology’s Department of Tourism Management, South Africa was honoured to host the event.
He explained the importance of the event, especially since it was the first time that an international event of this kind was held in South Africa. The event hosted well known academics from the field and provided valuable opportunities for industry to learn from the latest research and for researchers to learn from industry to drive the development of future research.
“This reciprocity, we hope, will allow for the further development of the adventure tourism sector in South Africa,” Prof Hermann said.
Day one of the conference included a keynote address by David Frost of the Southern African Tourism Services Association (SATSA) where he provided an insightful departure point for conference deliberations by giving an overview of the adventure tourism landscape in South Africa from an industry perspective.
In his presentation, ‘Setting the scene for People, Place and Planet’, Victor Tharage, Director General of the National Department of Tourism, discussed the dynamics of planning and managing tourism from a national government point of view. He emphasised the need for the tourism industry to give back to the planet what it has provided to the industry as well as the need for more effective bottom-up community based tourism initiatives.
Prof Marina Novelli from the Notingham University’s keynote address entitled ‘Your Adventure, my Home’ focused on sustainable adventure tourism kicked-off the second day of the conference and left delegates with much food for thought around the topic.
Victor Tharage, Director-General: National Department
of Tourism, addressed the conference on the first day.
Adventure Tourism Conference Speakers.
Prof Novelli (FASC, Leverhulme International Fellow), is a 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 in particular, having worked in twenty-eight 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.
Jacques Stoltz, Director of Tourism for the Western Cape, with his robust skills set that includes Strategy, Management, Tourism, Marketing Strategy, Research and more, spoke about the opportunities and challenges of managing adventure tourism in the province. His vast experience includes previous roles at Place Matters, Shisaka Development Management Services, Urban Genesis and the Gauteng Film Commission.
Other interesting and enlightening presentations delivered at the conference, focussed on themes related to ecotourism, adventure tourism education and adventure experiences.
According to an article published on the Adventure Tourism Research Association (ATRA) website, the idea for the International Adventure Conference (IAC) originated with Prof Peter Varley, Professor of Tourism and Outdoor Recreation at Northumbria University in the United Kingdom. While working at the Centre for Recreation and Tourism Research at the University of the Highlands and Islands in Scotland, he saw a gap amongst the numerous tourism conferences for an event that was focused on outdoor adventure research and learning. Peter and his colleague Dr Steve Taylor organised the first IAC in Fort William, Scotland in 2012, which attracted an eclectic international audience. At the second conference ATRA was established, built on the relationships and consensus developed in the first two events.
The tourism and hospitality industries are amongst the world’s most exciting and vibrant places to work, and nowhere more so than here in Africa. Outdoor adventure provides a great context in which to explore the ways landscape, peoples and more-than-human communities interact – in forests, in the sea and on the plains. South Africa provides an extraordinary stage for this significant conference.
Since 2012, the hosting of the conference has rotated to countries as diverse as Norway, Ireland, New Zealand and Spain. With South Africa providing an incredible landscape for adventure tourism experiences, it was fitting that such a conference, with a focus on cutting-edge and industry-relevant research, be hosted here.
Jacques Stoltz, Director of Tourism for the Western Cape.
Key note speaker, Prof MArina Novelli, with Faculty of
Management Sciences Marketer, Suzette Landman.
Management Sciences delegation attending Adventure Tourism conference.