Now that the travel world has truly shaken off the recession, hoteliers are no longer playing it safe. In 2015, big-name brands are branching out from what they do so famously: Mandarin Oriental, known for its outstanding city hotels, is opening a resort just outside Marrakech, while Aman Resorts, whose signature is peaceful sanctuaries in remote places, is coming to Tokyo.
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The indies are shaking things up, too, as with a pair of former &amp;Beyond executives opening their own private camp in Kenya’s Maasai Mara, and with Alan Faena, who is exporting his audacious namesake hotel in Buenos Aires to Miami. For travelers, the new luxury frontiers are in South America, which is safer than ever, easily reached and ideal for soft adventure: Hacienda Bambusa is bringing elegance to Colombia’s Coffee Triangle, and AlexVik is expanding his empire to Chile. Here’s what to check out when you check in in 2015.
Aman Tokyo
Aman junkies don’t ever need to be sold on the brand, but the opening of the first urban hotel promises to offer the faithful – and Aman virgins – a new take on that signature style. Atop a new tower in the posh Ginza district, the Aman Tokyo, which opened in December, has 360 views over the megalopolis and Mount Fuji, a 100-foot-high lobby atrium modeled on a paper lantern, traditional rock gardens and 84 of the largest rooms and suites in the city (starting at more than 700 square feet). There’s also a two-story spa, a 1,200-bottle wine cellar and a private-label sake.
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FAenA hoTel, miAmi BeAch
Ten years ago, when Argentinean fashion designer-turned-real-estate-developer Alan Faena opened his namesake hotel in abandoned
Buenos Aires docklands, his creative risks more than paid off – the Faena District is now the city’s most valuable real estate. In September 2015, that cheeky spirit is migrating north, with the opening of a new hotel in what was once the historic Saxony. Faena enlisted the masters of cinematic whimsy Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin to design the 169 rooms and suites, private screening room, theater for live cabaret shows and spa. And in his United States’ debut, much-lauded Argentinean grill master Francis Mallmann is consulting on the restaurant.
SiX SenSeS doUro VAlley, PorTUGAl
Its fans may not be quite as rabid as Aman’s, but Six Senses has developed a cult following among guests who admire its brand of eco-friendly bare foot (high) luxury in far-flung locations. Opening in mid-2015, the Douro Valley hideaway will finally bring Six Senses’ sensibility beyond Asia.
Fitted into a 19th-century manor house in the oldest wine-producing region in the world, the resort has 57 rooms, suites and villas, an extensive
spa with locally inspired grape-and olivebased treatments, a large yoga pavilion and the de rigueur local-seasonal-organic restaurant menu, much of it grown on-site, served in the restaurant and at “pop-up” tables set by the Douro River.
BAhiA Vik, UrUGUAy, And ViÑA Vik, millAhUe, chile
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With his first small luxury hotels in Uruguay, billionaire entrepreneur/art collector Alex Vik put the boho beach town of José Ignacio on the map. As with Vik’s earlier resorts, his much-anticipated Bahia Vik, which opened in January, has a focus on art and architecture throughout the 11 uniquely designed bungalows (most have two or three bedrooms) and the 10 suites in the main building. And November saw the debut of Viña Vik Millahue in Chile’s Alpaca  wine valley. The Frank Gehry- and Richard Serra-inspired retreat overlooks 11,000 acres of vineyards with the Andes rising in the distance, and offers tastings of Vik’s world-class wines and vinotherapy treatments in the spa.
Mandarin Oriental,
Marrakech
It’s the best of both worlds in the Red City: all the services of a leading international luxury brand but in an intimate environment with only 54 private-walled villas (with pools, sundecks and alfresco dining areas) and seven suites (some with rooftop plunge pools), and the olive-grove exoticism of the desert Palmeraie region combined with proximity to the historic medina. When it opens in the first quarter of 2015, Mandarin Oriental’s Moroccan outpost – the only resort in its current portfolio – will have the brand’s signature spa, a traditional hammam, lush gardens and five restaurants and bars serving Moroccan and international fare.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-29942 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/shutterstock_206253460-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/shutterstock_206253460-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/shutterstock_206253460-600x399.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/shutterstock_206253460-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/shutterstock_206253460.jpg 1000w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
hAciendA BAmBUSA, colomBiA
High-end operators like Blue Parallel, Butterfield &amp; Robinson and Absolute Travel are expanding their Colombia offerings for good reason: The charismatic country is finally getting its due, thanks to a stable government, improved safety, investment in luxury travel and convenient JetBlue flights from New York to Cartagena. And there’s now good reason to go beyond the colonial fantasyland of Cartagena into the “real” Colombia with the reopening in December of Hacienda Bambusa, an eight-room hotel overlooking a working hacienda with 500 acres of cacao, plantains, tangerines and pineapples, now managed by a Relais &amp; Châteaux vet. Long a favorite of in-the-know travelers, it’s an ideal base for visiting local coffee growers, hiking in Valle de Cocora National Park and touring nearby rural villages.

shutterstock_246046873

Where To Stay In 2015

Ethiopia boasts a kaleidoscope of cultures, from animistic tribes in the southern Rift Valley to its orthodox Christian heritage in the northern highlands. This ancient land offers both the intrepid traveler and religious pilgrim an opportunity to sample the variants of Abrahamic religions practised with unique zeal.
The Kingdom of Axum in what is present-day Ethiopia and Eritrea was one of the first Christian countries in the world, having officially adopted Christianity as the state religion in the fourth century. Ethiopia is mentioned over 37 times in King James’ version of the Bible. Today, Ethiopia continues to predominantly be Christian (63%) and the majority of Christians are Tewahedo Christians, who belong to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
I could feel the deep influence of Christianity traveling around the country. Both Islam and Christianity have flourished here side by side for centuries.
Lalibela, a remote town located at an altitude of 2,800 meters, is known around the world for its churches carved from living rock. The 13 rock-cut structures dating back to the 12th century are said to represent Jerusalem. The rock churches are connected to one another by labyrinthine tunnels with a small river in the middle, which the Ethiopians named the Jordan, in keeping with the idea of Jerusalem.
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The churches were not constructed in a traditional way but rather were hewn from the living rock of monolithic blocks. These blocks were further chiseled out, forming doors, windows, columns, various floors, roofs etc. In addition, several passages, drainage trenches, catacombs and hermit residences were also carved out. Proclaimed as an UNESCO World Heritage site, the churches of Lalibela are also a significant engineering feat, given that they are built atop artesian well formations that bring the water up to the top of the mountain ridge on which the city sits.
Arriving at the Church of Bet Madane, the largest monolithic church in the world (carved out of live rock), I found throngs of pilgrims occupying the many niches in deep prayer. The church is cut 15 meters down, its roof forming the shape of a Greek cross. The roof of this church is leveled with the ground and reached by stairs descending into narrow trenches. Worshippers were crouched, seated and often times standing, in deep individual prayer, following passages from the Bible.
Pursuing one’s religious beliefs in deep silence and quietitude in an amazing setting is something I will never forget.
In one particular church, I found the remains of thousands of Coptic pilgrims. There is a huge pit of strewn bones, skulls and shockingly well-preserved bodies of people who walked from Egypt and Syria to be buried in the church 1,500 years ago.
Upon visiting other churches, I noticed many pilgrims were slumbering in various nooks of these dark churches, tired from fasting and listening to chants all day. There were numerous nuns in traditional head covering. The scene was surreal and I could feel myself transported back in time.
It is said that there are a 1,000 monks in Lalibela amongst a population of 10,000. The priests of many temples were proud to display the treasures of the temples, stored in huge wooden cabinets hidden behind silk curtains. They include beautifully-illustrated Bibles written in Aramaic, and icons, silver crosses and ritual silver vessels used for worship.
Next stop was Axum, considered to be the holiest city. The city was the original capital of the Kingdom of Axum (1st-6th AD). Axumites developed a distinctive architecture exemplified by giant obelisks, the oldest of which date from 5000–2000 BC.
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The Ethiopian Orthodox Church claims that the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion in Axum houses the Biblical Ark of the Covenant in which lie the Tablets of Law upon which the Ten Commandments are inscribed. Fascinated by such a possibility, I entered the church and sat down with the large gathering of pilgrims, enjoying and appreciating the beautiful paintings inside this male-only enclave.
A religious land and a deeply religious people in a very ancient landscape is what I mainly observed traveling over 1,000 km inside the country. The beautiful smiles of the children and the elegantly-draped women who were glad to talk and be photographed were an added bonus. Ethiopia is still an unexplored gem. Boasting nine World Heritage sites, amazing religious traditions, world-class archeological sites and a host of beautiful people, Ethiopia is an ideal stopover, especially during Easter.

IMGP0916

Where History And Faith Meet

If you own a Twitter or Facebook account you would have seen the recent anger leveled against Walter Palmer for shooting Cecil, Zimbabwe’s most renowned male lion. You may have also heard the outcries of comedian Ricky Gervais and the general public last year about United States television host, Melissa Bachman, and football cheerleader, Kendall Jones, who both posted pictures of lions they hunted in South Africa. These hunts were labeled unethical, barbaric and cruel. But, as I waded through a plethora of social media posts, I noticed that the criticism never seemed to consider the ecological dangers of trophy hunting or, contrastingly, its use to generate revenue for wildlife management.
The African lion is 220 kilograms – with a muscled physique enabling them to hunt buffalo and giraffe – that possesses a roar that can be heard from five kilometers away. I can understand why people have a problem with the ethics of wealthy hunters killing lions in Africa, but there are deeper issues. With as few as 22,000 lions left in just seven population strongholds on the continent, many of Africa’s lions are in crisis. Furthermore, male lions group together, and depend on the size and protective power of their coalitions to protect their prides from neighboring males who will kill non-related offspring when they attempt to gain control of a pride. Hunting too many male lions destabilizes the defensive power of male coalitions and doesn’t allow adult males to be in an area long enough to protect their sons and daughters.
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In Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park, where Cecil was killed, a team of Oxford University researchers, led by Andy Loveridge, found that between 1999 and 2004, 24 of the 62 radio-collared lions were shot by trophy hunters. Overhunting halved the ratio of males to females and new males killed unrelated cubs. Zoologists, Matt Becker and Elias Rosenblatt, found a similar trend in Zambia’s South Luangwa National Park, where trophy hunting was the leading cause of lion deaths, resulting in fewer cubs, low teenage and adult male survival and lower life expectancies for females. Even the world’s most tenured lion biologist, Craig Packer, showed that Africa’s lion stronghold, Tanzania, was being subjected to overhunting in a lot of the hunting blocks across the country over the past decade.
Trophy hunting of large carnivores affects almost every large mammal, from black rhinoceros to elephant, and even common antelope like impala. The list is endless and so is the need for developing scientifically robust techniques to protect populations against the negative effects of hunting.
But, there are several places in Africa where animal populations are holding steady despite being hunted. The leopard population in the north of South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province suffered from unscrupulous hunting, with 40% of the population dying between 2002 and 2004. However, with a series of legislative reforms, a cap in quotas and intensive population monitoring, the population recovered to near capacity. The lion hunting management scheme, pioneered by Colleen Begg, in Niassa National Park, Mozambique, is another place where large carnivores are hunted but are not declining. Niassa employs a reward system with its outfitters, encouraging them to hunt older animals – considered safe for the population because they have sired at least one litter of cubs to independence – then their quota increases for the next season. If the hunter chooses a young individual or a female then their quota will decrease. Even in Zimbabwe, the land of the mythical Cecil, lion hunting is now capped, and lion populations have been stable since the hunting reforms made by Loveridge and his team.
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Millions of people in Africa live inside or on the borders of protected wildlife areas and their associated management zones. Many have to protect their livelihoods and sometimes their lives against animals such as lions and elephants. Surprising to most, many of Africa’s parks are linked to trophy hunting and the revenue generated from it. Recent science suggests hunting contributes to local economies and livelihoods. A recent study by Peter Lindsey, a leading wildlife management policy expert, and his colleagues found that approximately $400,000 generated through trophy hunting in Mozambique is ploughed back into the management of Niassa National Park, which amounts to 20% of the parks funding. On a larger scale, the $11 million generated by the Zambia Wildlife Authority, the country’s wildlife management and conservation body, is made up of $5 million from trophy hunting.
In 2000, a study by Michael Humavindu and Jonathan Barnes found that trophy hunting constituted about 14% of Namibia’s annual tourism and $19.6 million in gross output. But what about money going back to local communities? Lindsey found that in Tanzania 60 to 65% of hunting income from wildlife management areas, where wildlife and people live together, goes back to local communities. In Zambia 50% of hunt license fees and 20% of concession fees go back to communities. They also found families in wildlife-rich game management areas get about 17% more income and have a 7.8% better chance of finding a job than those living outside. Similarly, Humavindu and Barnes found about 24% of income earned from Namibian hunting went back to the poorer sector of the population.
Some of these statistics are difficult to ignore, especially if one considers Africa’s population growth will surpass China and India in the next 35 years. Much of this population growth will take place inside or along the borders of some of Africa’s largest wildlife areas.
Two recent studies suggested if lion hunting was banned in several countries, as much as 59,538km2 of wild land could become unviable for hunting. What would happen to that land? Although some operators could opt to try game drives or birding safaris, there is nothing to say that the land won’t be used for agriculture or the lions will not get poached.
Replacing hunting with tourism and photographic safaris might be plausible in some areas, but will be dependent on wildlife sightings in hunting zones being as good as those in national parks and whether the animals are scared of vehicles and people or not. In Zimbabwe’s Matetsi concession, a large hunting zone bordering Hwange National Park, the densities of buffalo, giraffe, kudu and zebra were similar to those of the national park between 1995 and 2010. However, if one looks at Zambia, the majority of game management areas have far fewer numbers of wildlife compared to their neighboring national parks. This would make safaris difficult unless they were geared towards specific species, rare birds or landscape and culture.
The Zimanga Private Game Reserve in South Africa has an intriguing idea of creating an artificial wetland and state-of-the-art bird hide which would allow photographers an eye-level opportunity to photograph animals. If such initiatives were attempted in Botswana, Zimbabwe and Tanzania, and community members were integrated into these ventures, they could become profitable. However, at this stage, there is no legal framework linking community benefits and photographic tourism in national parks. Is it not time to make it easier to pick up a camera than a rifle?

Can Hunting  Save Animals?

There’s no better place to take a photograph of Rosette Chantal Rugamba than on the terrace of the landmark Hotel des Mille Collines by Kempinski in Kigali. It’s easy getting permission for this from the hotel’s management. Rugamba is well-known here and a regular.
The hotel affords a 360-degree view of the city and its splendorous rolling hills. Rugamba, in an orange suit and matching necklace, views the twinkling lights of Kigali and takes a deep breath of the crisp night air. She has had much to do with this vision of the city.
Twelve years ago, she was appointed Rwanda’s tourism head by the country’s president, Paul Kagame, and tasked with turning around the country’s tourism infrastructure.
She had never lived in Rwanda before that. Her parents had fled the country to Uganda in 1959 and she grew up as a refugee with her seven siblings. Her parents never let them forget they were Rwandan first. The children were encouraged to learn French and culturally attuned to their country’s traditions. Be it books, music or dance, their home reverberated with Rwandan nuances, as the family lived on hope they would one day return home.
Her father was a brewer and her mother a teacher, but their humble home was always open to fellow Rwandans.
“There was always plenty of food,” recalls Rugamba. “And if you had to roll out a hundred mattresses, so be it.”
As her parents’ first-born, there was pressure on her to perform – and excel. She studied political science at university in Uganda. She married Henry, an Ugandan, and thereafter moved to London. Her husband worked for the British telecom industry, while she started her career with Harrods as a customer services manager. Today, she lauds herself for having been among the team that launched the first Harrods store at Terminal 3 in Heathrow airport. Yet another milestone: she was “among the 100 people” who started Eurostar.
“I am the sort of person who always wants to start things,” says Rugamba.
Although she was settling well in Britain, in her heart, she recalled the songs of Rwanda, the songs on its flowing rivers and rolling hills.
In 1984, she decided to ‘risk a trip’ to Rwanda, which was still in the throes of the liberation struggle.
“I wanted to experience the country and so toured it for the first time. I was satisfied but not sure if I would ever see it again.”
In 1996, Rugamba joined British Airways as its sales and marketing manager for East Africa, and she subsequently moved to Uganda. Rwanda’s horrific 1994 genocide was still fresh on her mind.
“We used to do a lot of fundraising for the people and the soldiers. My mom’s family was completely wiped out,” says Rugamba.
In 2002, she received a call from Kagame, asking her to return to her homeland. At the time, things looked positive for Rwanda.
“I asked myself ‘what value can I add?’. I am eternally grateful to the President that he unleashed the potential I never knew I had.”
Kagame wanted her to raise Rwanda’s profile through tourism and turn it into an engine for economic change in the country.
“The brief I got from him was ‘make sure every tourism dollar is spent in the country,’” says Rugamba.
When she took over as the Director General of Tourism and National Parks in January 2003, she was six months pregnant and a newcomer in her own homeland.
“The tasks in front of me were huge. I was coming back to a country I had never lived in and tasked with tourism in a country that had never known it. I felt like a tourist in my own country,” she says.
She embarked on the job with passion.
“The country was embedded in me. I was so excited that for the first time I was given a Rwandan passport, the one given to government officials but one that came with responsibility. It actually meant I was now a part of the transformation of the country.”
It also came with personal sacrifice – for a while. She came to Rwanda leaving her family behind in Uganda.
“My husband said ‘you go, we will be fine, you are getting a chance to serve your country, we can manage’. Women can’t do it without the support of men,” says Rugamba.
The first thing she did was get on the radio every Sunday at 3PM, talking about the country’s tourism potential and the role Rwandans would play.
“Tourism is multi-faceted and for it to succeed, the masses needed to be involved. We had to get the coffee, tea and ICT sectors as well to support it.”
Her mandate was to grow the tourism numbers, build restaurants and hotels, and offer tourists local handicrafts and every reason to visit Rwanda.
“Rwandans are very patriotic and they linked [tourism] to the visionary leader they loved so much. Until then, everyone only knew Rwanda for the 2Gs: the genocide and gorillas. It was time to showcase whatever else Rwanda had to offer,” says Rugamba.
Tasked with reinvigorating tourism in the ‘Land of the Thousand Hills’, for the next seven years, she reoriented the sector putting in place new policies and strategic master plans. She launched the country internationally with a new pitch: ‘Rwanda – the new dawn of Africa’.
“I was so determined to sell the vision. I went to the [East Africa] region, gathered the tour operators and brought them here. The target was high-end eco-tourism.”
Eugene Rutagarama, who as the Country Director of IGCP (International Gorilla Conservation Programme) worked closely with Rugamba for eight years, extols her ability to tackle problems and take a stand on tough issues.
“Rosette Rugamba is an energetic person, an inspiring leader to her peers and to any person who happens to know her well. I was always impressed by her innovative approach to complex situations and her strong desire to reach a high level of accomplishment,” he recalls.
Her efforts paid off.
By the time Rugamba stepped down in 2010, tourism had become Rwanda’s top foreign-exchange earner. The tourism master plan for Rwanda’s Vision 2020 had been laid out, and the country was a stand-alone destination in the East African bloc.
In 2003, when she took on the job, tourist numbers in Rwanda were a mere 13,000. When she left in 2010, that figure had risen to 790,000.
In 2013, Rwanda had more than 1.1 million visitors and tourism generated $293.6 million. The number of hotel rooms in the country has risen to 8,417. It was 650 when Rugamba started. To accommodate the demand, the current airport has recently been expanded and a new airport is being built in Bugasera.
It was time for Rugamba to find a new challenge.
“I saw what tourism could do for Rwanda. I wanted to do the same for Africa. My vision is to go everywhere,”
she says.
She chose to turn entrepreneur, starting Songa Africa, a luxury tour company focusing on sustainable tourism.
“There was room for an indigenous luxury tour company headed by a woman. I had the passion, local knowledge and appreciation of the luxury clientele. I started with an old laptop and a contact book, but with a vision.”
In March, her company completes five years. She admits to having international celebrities, presidents, film stars and media moguls as clients. She has been consistently recognized as one of East Africa’s leading tourism and conservation strategists.
“What happened to me is magical,” she says.
Rugamba’s company is launching its first custom-built luxury eco-lodge in March and will be rolling out three five-star lodges to the tune of $5.5 million. Her company is also getting into conference tourism in line with Rwanda’s strategy to position itself as a business destination.
All this has meant extensive travel for Rugamba.
“Oh my goodness, I have hardly been in the country these last three months,” she says. But wherever she goes, all roads lead her back home to Rwanda.

Harrods, Heathrow,  Home

Paula Slier, Middle East Bureau Chief for Russia Today and CEO and founder of Newshoundmedia, has worked in broadcasting for over 20 years as a foreign correspondent, anchor and news editor, and received numerous awards for her work. Her work has included reporting live under fire in Tripoli while Muammar Gadaffi’s forces were on the offensive, and crawling through a tunnel with Hamas smugglers in Gaza.
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A TEFI-nominated (Russia’s highest television award) journalist for her reporting on Libya, she also reports from the frontline in Iraq, Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, Egypt, Gaza and Lebanon. Prior to reporting for Russia Today, she was senior assignment news editor and anchored breaking news and special events for SABC.
Q.Where are you now
[in November]?
<ol>
<li>I am currently in Eastern Ukraine covering the battle between pro-Russian fighters and the Ukrainian military. [In October], I was on the Turkey-Syria border, 500 meters from the city of Kobane where Syrian Kurds are fighting with ISIS. Before that, I spent two weeks in Iraq embedded with the Peshmerga soldiers (Iraqi Kurds) on the frontline. I slept alongside them, outside behind their sandbags, to be woken up by US warplanes at three in the morning bombing ISIS positions nearby and the Peshmerga fighters’ firing shells a few kilometers into the distance. A highlight was spending time with the YPJ women fighters – some as young as 17 years old – who had given up school to fight ISIS.</li>
<li>What plans for the new year? Where will you be?</li>
<li>It’s impossible to say because I can get a call at any moment, even in the middle of the night, and be asked by my news editor to get on the next available flight to …and here the dots can be anywhere from Syria to Afghanistan to Egypt. The last time I took a holiday was a few months back. I’d gone to Thailand and was on the massage bed when the SMS came. Major fighting had broken out in Ukraine and I was asked if I could cut my holiday short and fly there immediately. As you can imagine I had the wrong clothing with me. I arrived in Ukraine with summer dresses, swimming costumes and sandals to cover a war. I had organized with the cameraman who met me in Ukraine to go past my home and pack warm, appropriate clothes for me, but he was stopped at airport security – not because he had bullet-proof jackets and helmets, but because he was traveling with women’s clothing!</li>
</ol>
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<ol>
<li>Are holidays not in the diaries of war correspondents?</li>
<li>We like to pencil them in, but realistically we probably change the dates on average about four to five times for each trip. I’m supposed to take the rest of my Thailand holiday at the end of this month but I’m delaying booking the flights until the absolute last minute.</li>
<li>As a female war reporter, are there any specific challenges?</li>
<li>I’m often asked if I think being a woman aids or makes my job more difficult. I think it’s a mixture of both. On the one hand being female has helped me gain access to sources who might be more difficult to reach if I was a man. Especially in the Middle East, where many societies are quite patriarchal, women reporters often are seen as a third androgynous sex if you like – I get to sit with Taliban fighters and sip tea while their wives and daughters are in the other room. It feels like they don’t know what to do with me. But I’ve also interviewed Hamas leaders who don’t look directly at me when answering questions because I’m female. It was difficult covering the Egyptian protests in Tahrir Square as a woman. A few women journalists were raped and not-so-few were sexually assaulted and harassed, prompting ‘Reporters Without Borders’ to urge news organizations not to send women there. The association later amended their statement, warning rather that “security should be paramount”. Certainly some of the physical risks we face are greater than our male colleagues – although threats like kidnappings and intimidation are the same.</li>
<li>What are the highs of war reporting?</li>
<li>It’s a high to be on the cutting edge of news, to be at that spot on earth where all the world’s TV cameras are pointing, to be in the thick of history. I get to have experiences most people can only dream of – in the morning I could be interviewing street children, in the afternoon, I could be flying in a military helicopter and by evening, dining with a president. One of my favorite stories is when I was on foot patrol with US forces in Afghanistan and a group of children kept running after us. Much later, when we paused at a school for a few minutes, I took off my bullet-proof jacket and helmet and one of the boys, slightly aghast, came up to me and asked: “Ma’am, does your husband know you’ve left the house?”</li>
</ol>

grad5

‘I Arrived With Swimming Costumes To Cover A War’

Africa was regarded the last frontier for adventure and exploration during the colonial rule. Today, it’s the polar seas, the Arctic and the Antarctic, that have not been invaded by mass tourism – yet.
Only a few years ago, it was daunting to travel to its far reaches, but today, for a hefty sum, one can step on the North Pole or South Pole – and proudly proclaim oneself an adventure tourist.
The land of the midnight sun offers some of the most scenic and finest wildlife experiences in the world. The most accessible parts of the Arctic are the seas between northern Canada, Greenland and the Svalbard archipelago in Norway. Thanks to modern travel, one can fly from Oslo to Longyearbyen, the largest settlement in Svalbard in Norway, by commercial jet and then approach 80 degrees N latitude by ice class ships, which offer adventure tourists some of the most magnificent vistas of the polar world.
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With glaciers and ice caps covering 24,000 square miles, Svalbard is one of the largest glaciated areas in the Arctic with 2,100 named glaciers. In comparison, the Himalayas only have 380 glaciers. The climate in the Arctic is currently warming at a faster rate than observed elsewhere on earth and future projections suggest that in 60 years, there may be no glaciers left.
Polar travel can be daunting, exhilarating and often disappointing, primarily due to unpredictable weather conditions. Like the weather, spotting wildlife can also be a hit or miss, depending on how lucky you are.
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Trekking The Tundra
My polar adventure began the moment I boarded the Russian registered expedition ship, Akademik Sergey Vavilov, in Longyearbyen, Spitsbergen. I had traveled on this same ship to Antarctica two years ago. It’s an ice class vessel capable of cutting through loose floes (sheets of floating ice).
The Arctic Ocean is a frozen landmass that extends across six million square miles in winter and drops to 145,000 square miles in summer. There is increasing evidence that it has shrunk over the past few years. The rigid ice cap is sometimes 50 feet thick. When it melts, it creates floes and icebergs that can block shipping lanes – remember how the Titanic sank?
The 70-odd passengers in the vessel with me embarked on daily boat expeditions, 10 per boat, to visit bird cliffs, track polar bears and walruses, land on isolated beaches or enjoy tundra walks of up to three miles. In doing so, we observed polar bears feasting on seals, pods of walruses on the beaches, cliffs with over 500,000 birds and rare arctic foxes. Trekking on the tundra, a frozen, barren land, with only peat and moss growing for months in a year, provided me a unique perspective on the ecology of the arctic lands.
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The tundra supports herbivores like reindeers that graze for two months to build enough reserves for the entire winter. There are over 120 species of arctic flowers amongst the 1,700 species of plant life.
Any visit to the Arctic is not complete without spotting a polar bear. The polar bear habitat encompasses the entire circumpolar Arctic region. Their main habitat is on offshore pack ice, and along coasts and islands of the Arctic region. Over 40% of all polar bears live in Northern Canada, on pack ice and along the shores of the many islands there. Bears will remain in this ice pack habitat all year. It is estimated that over 3,400 bears live in the Svalbard area.
The vast tundra, the glacial rivers of ice, animals on the brink of extinction due to global warming, and rich oceans where over 25 humpback whales feed all around the ship, are all experiences one can never forget. The camaraderie of an international group of passengers makes the trip even more enjoyable.

Photo-2

Polar Bears And Rivers Of ice

We started from the bottom; now we’re here,” says Johanna Mukoki, quoting popular artist Drake. She has hobnobbed with the musician on a visit to the United States, but his lyrics hit closer to home.
Mukoki, who owns Travel With Flair, a top South African tourism company, vividly remembers her years of struggle as a young girl running a rickety Soweto stall with nothing but hope and dreams for a better future.
Baragwanath is South Africa’s biggest public hospital and has its place etched in history as the apartheid era’s ‘black hospital’. Bara sprawls lazily across Soweto and is connected to Soweto’s taxi rank by the ‘Bara Bridge’. Almost 40 years ago, in the sea of human traffic from the taxi rank to the hospital, Mukoki stood, just legs and bones, with a smile, beckoning passersby to try a boiled egg, an apple or any of the edible fare on offer in her little stall.
Seated face-to-face with Mukoki now, it is difficult to imagine her that way on Bara Bridge. Today, she laughs at the incredulity of it.
“When I drive past Bara in my Porsche, I’m reminded of my blessings. That’s where I come from.”
She has an irrepressible get-up-and-go attitude about her. As she talks, her hands animate her words.
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We talk about her childhood, and her moeder (Afrikaans for mother) and father come to life. Their influence in the cultivation of her entrepreneurial flair dominates her story-telling.
Her mother was a teacher who she thinks was “probably a business tycoon in her previous life”. Outside of classroom hours, she ensured Mukoki manned the stall at Bara Bridge but it didn’t end there. At the end of each month, with swathes of brightly-colored, newly-sewn curtains, folded with meticulous precision, Mukoki would have to expertly balance the curtains on her head and accompany her mother to Qwa-Qwa to sell the designs.
Her father, on the other hand, made sure she focused on maintaining her straight As in school. Books connected father and daughter.
“Papa made sure that I read white people’s books even in poor and dusty Soweto. We knew that education was the only way out of this poverty thing.”
Her laughter fills the room as she recounts her obsession with saving every cent of her pay on the family business but went about it the wrong way.
“I used to hide my coins under the vinyl tiles in the kitchen. Problem with that was that as people walked over my secret vault, the shape of the coins would become increasingly pronounced…and my balance would somehow start falling.” The qualified accountant knows better now.
From coins under vinyl tiles to holding her own amongst billionaires, kings and queens, to rock stars, Mukoki has certainly arrived. She counts amongst her friends and mentors the late Nelson Mandela, Bono, Sol Kerzner, Bill Clinton, Stephen Kosseff…the list is endless.
The journey from the bottom to now wasn’t a joy ride by any means.
It’s fragile ground as we broach her
biggest setback.
It happened in 2006, when the phone rang just as she stepped into her office. It was a frantic call from Moeder.
“Jo, you have to get me out of here or else I’m not going to make it,” she said. Her mother was in Cape Town and had gone in for a routine health checkup, albeit in the care of doctors she wasn’t familiar with. And she was reacting negatively to the medication prescribed to her. Mukoki and her siblings worked round the clock to get their mother checked out and readmitted to another hospital.
“Bureaucracy failed us. We had to fight for hours before she was released.” It was too late. Within hours, Moeder was gone.
“I felt like I’d been kicked in the gut,” says Mukoki. She had to learn to survive without Moeder, there was no other way to deal with it.
“I wanted to fight. I want to sue everyone involved. It took my family to help me accept the victory in walking away.” It has been a long journey for Mukoki since.
Today, she has been leading the tourism company she co-founded, Travel With Flair, in Johannesburg, for more than 18 years. Their wings have spread, pushing past South Africa’s borders and venturing into Africa. Her team has grown relentlessly. She now has 650 employees; 80% are women. Mukoki has won several trophies and awards along the way. She has also recently joined a global alliance which gives her company greater exposure.
“We started from the bottom;
now we’re here!” she says, quoting
Drake again.

IMG_0744

From Bara Bridge To The Boardroom

If first impressions are important then Mauritius, the new whiz kid in African business, isn’t doing too badly. Picture this, you are a foreign investor flying into Port Louis and the cabin crew hands you your landing card. Now, across Africa, this is usually a flimsy and poorly printed piece of paper that could blow away.
In Mauritius, it is a thick, bonded, full-color paper printed in two languages. You could mistake it for a share certificate or frame it, stick it on the wall, and pass it off for qualifications. Just one of the many ways the small island in the Indian Ocean, desperate to punch above its weight, wants to win over investors before they hit the arrival lounge.
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Industrious Mauritius has been busy, since it liberalized its sleepy island economy in 2006, on its way to becoming a little Singapore off the coast of Africa. This year, the World Economic Forum named fast-growing Mauritius the most competitive economy in Africa ranking 45th, above South Africa at 54.
“The only difference between Singapore and Mauritius is that they had oil and we had sugar,” smiles Ashok Kumar Aubeeluck, the head of economic research at the Bank
of Mauritius.
Those sugar days are almost over. Thirty years ago, 65,000 Mauritians worked in the sugar cane fields and made up nearly a third of the economy – these days, that number has dropped to around 14,000 with sugar making up a mere 1.2% of the economy, according to Aubeeluck.
It was almost 20 years to the day since I set foot in Mauritius and I was surprised by the changes: a spanking new airport; new roads beneath the construction cranes; a cyber-city in Ebene, south of the capital Port Louis, with a cluster of buildings that could have been imported from Silicon Valley; plus, flourishing export processing zones that attract entrepreneurs and earn around half of the country’s income. This is a place, with an independent judiciary, that not only works, but also cleanly.
“I have worked here for 15 years and I have never been asked for a bribe,” says Deyan Ristic, an analyst with Africa Practice in Port Louis.
Many of the world’s largest financial institutions, no doubt encouraged by the island’s 15% flat tax rate to look after its mere 1.3 million people, have moved in. Foreign companies can claim tax credits leaving them with no more than a 3% rate of tax.
Mauritius sees itself as very much part of Africa and more than half of investments from the island are channelled into the continent. The island is very conscious of its image and is moving to protect it.
“Despite all our efforts to be clean, NGOs and biased international media have attacked us. We have employed a reputed public relations agency to create the image of Mauritius as an international destination for investment,” says the foreign minister, Arvin Boolell, at a conference on private equity on the island, organized by the Board of Investment.
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Seventy percent of the income of Mauritius comes from services. It benefits from it colonial past in that the island works with both French and English law. A clear advantage when the giants of Asia wish to use Port Louis as a staging post for investments in both Anglophone and Francophone Africa.
Surprisingly, many in business believe Mauritius, the island prepared to meet the world halfway, is not doing enough to entice companies.
“We need economic reform more than electoral reform,” says one of the more cynical business types on the island.
Nevertheless, electoral reform is in the air as Mauritius looks to elections, expected to be announced by the end of the year, in 2015 when the tenure of Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam comes to an end. Ramgoolam is a skilled coalition builder who rules with his Labour Party, through a tenuous power sharing deal, and the new incumbent is likely to take power with a similar arrangement.
Many critics have called for an end to the island’s long standing ‘best loser’ system, whereby eight politicians – who did not win their seats – are appointed to Parliament. The doubters complain these appointments are made on ethnic grounds.
The opposition and critics also cry out for new blood in government and complain that the right politicians are not being picked for the big jobs. Whatever happens in the elections, the only near certainty is that they will be peaceful – save for a bit of badinage and posturing – another pillar of stable Mauritius.
“I have seen more verbal violence in the Scottish referendum than I have ever seen in Mauritius,” says Moussa Rawat, the Edinburgh University educated non-executive chairman of the Bramer Corporation – a top five company in Mauritius with assets of $1.5 billion.
After the elections, Mauritius will be looking to the future and business. The may have few people, but plenty of business ideas.
Aubeeluck says Mauritius is looking into getting more out of the Indian Ocean.
“At the moment we are getting around one percent of our economy from the sea, largely through seafood , but if we go ahead with plans to harvest  more marine and plant life from the sea we could be talking between five and seven percent,” says Aubeeluck.
There is also interest in green energy. Aubeeluck is excited by a German project in the North Sea that puts windmills offshore – where the wind always blows.
“The Germans have managed to power 650,000 households with six offshore windmills, we have only 275,000, so with windmills we could power the whole island and reduce our carbon footprint at the same time.”
Foreign money appears to have the same idea. Fred Sisson and his company, Synnove Energy, is sinking $150 million into generating wind and solar energy
on Mauritius.
“The infrastructure is good here and it is very stable and there is growing demand for energy,” says Sisson.
Mauritius has plans to increase its energy output from 650MW to 850MW over the next few years.
The island also plans to strengthen its position in the financial services world. Entrepreneur Dhaneshwar Damry has worked for the last two years on a plan to open the first pan-African electronic bourse in the first quarter of 2015. It will deal with companies with a market capital of $50 million and upwards from mining to healthcare. The plan needs the final approval of the Financial Services Commission.
“I think it will work. If you look at it, a Nigerian company will prefer to work with us, rather than a South African company, because there is a history of business rivalry between the two countries,” says Damry in Port Louis.
Another sign in these troubled economic times that if you could bottle optimism and sell it, Mauritius could make a fortune through export.

Paradise Found?

When in August, Captain Irene Koki Mutungi, a pilot with Kenya’s national carrier Kenya Airways, flew into Nairobi the airline’s fourth Boeing 787 Dreamliner from Boeing’s assembly site in South Carolina, United States, it did not make much news.
The fact that she is Africa’s first black female Boeing 787 Dreamliner certified Captain did not make headlines either. The story was the plane.
Mutungi was raised in what she describes an aviator’s home. Her father was a pilot with Kenya Airways.
“My most memorable moment was when I flew with him on a flight he was commanding to London. I was about five years old. From that day, I promised myself I would one day become a Captain,” she reminisces.
She says she’s fortunate to be born into a family where excellence and integrity were all-important. She has become more conscious of the real world and is motivated by the fact that women, especially African women, can excel in everything. Has she ever encountered discrimination as a woman?
“Unfortunately, such is life. Anytime it has happened it has increased my resolve to keep aiming high. In my early years in aviation, a passenger disembarked because he said he wasn’t a guinea pig. That can tell you what I’ve been through sometimes.”
In many parts of the world and especially Africa, it’s still a man’s world. The stereotype of the working woman is rarely attractive with popular culture portraying successful women as consumed by their careers.
“As for stereotypes, this one too is far from reality. There are countless women successful in their careers and dedicated to their families and communities at large.”
Mutungi cites Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, former Malawi President Joyce Banda and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the Africa Union Chairperson.
“Just like those African leaders and other women who are anchors of their households and communities, I too am a dedicated person who always strives towards excellence while remaining committed to what matters. I do that by being a model mother, model daughter and a role model to my African sisters.”
Mutungi describes her journey to the top in a male-dominated industry as one filled with commitment, sacrifice and support from friends and family.
Fear is at the root of so many barriers women face. Fear of not being liked. Fear of making the wrong choice. Fair of failure. How does Mutungi handle fear?
“I don’t know what fear means. Yes, sometimes I may ask myself questions, but every situation is handled in a way that leaves me in control.”
She says she rarely has sleepless nights. “If I stay awake at night, it’s not usually anything of concern. I think of how great an aircraft the B787 Dreamliner is. Boeing has delivered a masterpiece.”
Mutungi wants to be remembered as an African mother who tried her best to change the narrative of the African continent.

FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-058-Kenyan-pilot-001

Flying The Dream

Rich Africans may make their money in Africa, but enjoy spending it in London. After all, London has it all. Nobody is going to be imprisoned because their face no longer fits. The legal system is fair and what’s yours remains yours. Best of all, London has a world-class financial system, which is quite happy to take an African’s wealth and grow it for them. Even with a first-world tax system, London boasts 45 billionaires, making it the world’s fourth richest city.
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<h4>Education</h4>
For successful Africans, nothing is more important than educating their children for future success. Britain is rather good at this, and school is where you make friends and contacts for life. It defines your social status. A recent Tatler article on wealthy Nigerians highlighted Florence Otedola, the 20-year-old King’s School-educated daughter of Femi Otedola, one of Nigeria’s richest men. Boarding fees for King’s in 2014-15 are $55,700, and according to Tatler, Nigerians spend $500 million every year at British universities and schools such as Benenden, Wycombe Abbey, Cheltenham Ladies’ College, Eton, Harrow and Bradfield.
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<h4>Concierge service</h4>
Rich people employ a concierge business to open doors in London, and rich Africans are no exception. Veronica Voronina is CEO and Founder of her own concierge business, The Anonymous, which has a number of wealthy African clients. The idea is to allow the superrich to plug into a network of excellence.
“Our database is our best asset. We source the best of everything – doctors, lawyers, property agents, party planners, nannies, restaurants, hotels, even the best diamonds,”
says Vorinina.
It’s all about price and quality.
“Rich people didn’t get rich by wasting money.”
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<h4>Houses</h4>
Many wealthy Africans have business interests in London. So, even if they are only there for a few weeks a year, Africans like to buy. The preferred areas are Knightsbridge, Belgravia, St John’s Wood, and Kensington and Chelsea. The most controversial development is One Hyde Park in Knightsbridge, described as the most expensive residential development on earth. One apartment reputedly sold for $230 million. Several billionaire Africans have bought there, but few live there; it is an investment not a home. Upper-class Londoners, priced out of their natural habitat by international interlopers, are said to be increasingly unhappy.
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<h4>Hotels</h4>
Africans fly around the world in pursuit of business deals and the hotel they choose to stay in often defines their social status. The most prestigious hotels to namedrop are the grand old London hotels, The Lanesborough, The Dorchester and Claridges. The Royal Suite at Claridges will set you back around $82,000 per week. And of course the Mandarin Oriental in Knightsbridge is the quintessential business hotel chain. Younger entrepreneurs may prefer boutique hotels like Andre Balazs’ Chiltern Firehouse hotel. All reek of exclusivity.
&nbsp;
Shopping
Wealthy Africans love to shop. Their favorite stores in London are Harvey Nichols, Harrods and Selfridges. It’s a well-oiled world of shopping by appointment, private openings, personal shoppers and trips to private shopping departments, as well as limousines and drivers to carry the shopping home. The shopping company Premier Tax Free reports that Nigerians account for 46.3% of total African sales in London and the fastest-growing region for international sales in Britain this year has been Africa, whose spend has grown by 45% year on year.
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<h4>Experiences</h4>
The Beatles sang money can’t buy you love. But according to concierge company, The Anonymous, money can buy pretty much everything else. One client, convinced the world was coming to an end, decided to splash out. Alongside gas masks and copious quantities of food, they wanted the best, no expense spared, holiday ever. A private jet was hired for a three-week trip around the United States. Helicopters flew the family over the Grand Canyon and New York. The client splashed $25,000 on the illusionist Criss Angel and then went to Universal Studios in Florida on a VIP pass. Hopefully the holiday offset any disappointment that the world still exists.
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<h4>Private jets</h4>
For mere mortals, travel is conducted by commercial plane and train. For the uber-wealthy transport is done by private jet. And if you don’t own one, you charter one. Charter companies like Little Blue will fly you to Paris for the weekend for around $20,000. Nigerians don’t just use private jets to carry themselves; they take their lifestyle with them.
“If someone wants basic food &#8211; milk, bread, cheese, yogurt – I’ll go somewhere, like Whole Foods, and pick up the employer on the way to Farnborough (a small airport on the outskirts of London), load it on the plane and send it off,” says Ansema Fagapona, who works with rich families.
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<h4>Superyachts</h4>
Yachting is as much about the exclusive lifestyle as it is about owning a boat. With it comes access to a world beyond the reach of mere mortals. For those who can afford it, glittering European destinations like Monaco, Cannes and the azure seas of Sardinia beckon, and few luxury experiences are better than being on a yacht.
To order a new superyacht at one shipyard, tycoons need to put their names on a five-year waiting list. A weekly charter of the stunning 65-metre superyacht, Imagine, at $710,000 per week may be the preferred option.
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<h4>Celebrations</h4>
What is better than going to an Akon concert with friends to celebrate your 16th birthday? How about a private Akon gig? Did I mention that the 15 friends were all flown to a private island near Dubai, transported in limousines and given Michelin-star catering? Wealthy Africans certainly know how to party. And if you would like to treat your wife on your wedding anniversary, why not hire the renowned Cipriani’s Italian restaurant in Mayfair for a night. You and your beloved can be the only diners on the night, with Beverly Knight on vocals  to add a special touch of romance. Ahhh.
&nbsp;
<h4>Polo</h4>
Polo is famously the sport of kings and was introduced to Lagos in the 1930s through the Lagos Polo Club. Today, in Britain, you will find oil and gas supremo Kola Karim playing polo with Prince William and Prince Harry at Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s private estate, and at Cowdray Park, the best polo ground in the country. The Veuve Clicquot Gold Cup is the most prestigious competition and Nigeria’s Prince Albert Esiri has competed several times. A team of four players, each with a dozen or more top polo horses, would need millions of dollars to play a sing

How Africans Splash Their Cash

Before it scraped the skies it had to pay a $4 road toll. The plane that can fly 500 kilometers an hour also caused a traffic jam for Sunday churchgoers as it trundled 40 kilometers from the factory along the N1 highway to the airfield. Amid all the confusion, it also needed a traffic permit and a police escort.
“The person in the toll gate didn’t know what to charge us. We were larger than a car, but the plane only had three wheels. In the end she let us decide. So we paid the maximum [$4] considering we had stopped the entire highway,” says Paul Potgieter Junior, Program Manager of ARHLAC Holdings, which worked with Paramount Group in designing and building the multi-purpose military aircraft.
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“We brought Pretoria to its knees on Sunday church time,” says Ivor Ichikowitz, Executive Chairman of Paramount Group, at the post flight briefing.
Nearly three months later, on a chilly August morning the advanced High-Performance Reconnaissance Light Aircraft (AHRLAC), worth $9 million, soared into the skies on its first public flight.
“This is without doubt a truly historic moment in the South African aerospace and aviation industry. What we have witnessed today has relevance for the whole country and the continent. It marks the rebirth of a dormant industry that has been devoid of innovation for years… this project proves we can build things in Africa and the world is noticing,” says Ichikowitz after the plane lands.
It took four years for 60 engineers and technicians, all African, working 315,000 hours, to do what many thought was crazy.
The ARHLAC can do four jobs in one, cutting costs. It can be fitted for combat, disaster management, intelligence gathering and surveillance within 4 hours.
Along with features like a pusher prop, which allows for unobstructed views in the cockpit, the plane can also carry an 800-kilogram payload; enough for a fighting wild fires from the air. It comes with rugged landing gear for harsh terrain.
“While it’s a terrific feat of South African engineering and a wonderful achievement to have designed, built and flown a new aircraft type, until the details of the proven flight envelope, its handling characteristics, range, payload and endurance are published, it is impossible for anyone to give an independent view of the aircraft,” says Linden Birns, MD of Plane Talking.
Potential customers will also want to know the costs of service plans, its spare parts and its lifespan, an issue all new planes face, says Birns.
“This was the challenge that faced Denel in 1994/95 when it tried to sell Rooivalk to Malaysia and other nations &#8211; the new South Africa had just been born and there was uncertainty about Denel’s future and that it might not be around to support the helicopter in the long term.”
In the near future, Paramount plans to make 30 planes a year. That will amount to a lot of toll fees.
Before it scraped the skies it had to pay a $4 road toll. The plane that can fly 500 kilometers an hour also caused a traffic jam for Sunday churchgoers as it trundled 40 kilometers from the factory along the N1 highway to the airfield. Amid all the confusion, it also needed a traffic permit and a police escort.
“The person in the toll gate didn’t know what to charge us. We were larger than a car, but the plane only had three wheels. In the end she let us decide. So we paid the maximum [$4] considering we had stopped the entire highway,” says Paul Potgieter Junior, Program Manager of ARHLAC Holdings, which worked with Paramount Group in designing and building the multi-purpose military aircraft.
“We brought Pretoria to its knees on Sunday church time,” says Ivor Ichikowitz, Executive Chairman of Paramount Group, at the post
flight briefing.
Nearly three months later, on a chilly August morning the advanced High-Performance Reconnaissance Light Aircraft (AHRLAC), worth $9 million, soared into the skies on its first public flight.
“This is without doubt a truly historic moment in the South African aerospace and aviation industry. What we have witnessed today has relevance for the whole country and the continent. It marks the rebirth of a dormant industry that has been devoid of innovation for years… this project proves we can build things in Africa and the world is noticing,” says Ichikowitz after the plane lands.
It took four years for 60 engineers and technicians, all African, working 315,000 hours, to do what many thought was crazy.
The ARHLAC can do four jobs in one, cutting costs. It can be fitted for combat, disaster management, intelligence gathering and surveillance within 4 hours.
Along with features like a pusher prop, which allows for unobstructed views in the cockpit, the plane can also carry an 800-kilogram payload; enough for a fighting wild fires from the air. It comes with rugged landing gear for harsh terrain.
“While it’s a terrific feat of South African engineering and a wonderful achievement to have designed, built and flown a new aircraft type, until the details of the proven flight envelope, its handling characteristics, range, payload and endurance are published, it is impossible for anyone to give an independent view of the aircraft,” says Linden Birns, MD of Plane Talking.
Potential customers will also want to know the costs of service plans, its spare parts and its lifespan, an issue all new planes face, says Birns.
“This was the challenge that faced Denel in 1994/95 when it tried to sell Rooivalk to Malaysia and other nations &#8211; the new South Africa had just been born and there was uncertainty about Denel’s future and that it might not be around to support the helicopter in the long term.”
In the near future, Paramount plans to make 30 planes a year. That will amount to a lot of toll fees.

Is It A Car? Is It A Plane?

It’s hard to determine Sol Kerzner’s net worth due to his complex web of properties, consultancy fees, dividend income, tax havens, and public and private interests. What’s clear is that he’s sitting pretty in retirement.
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His is a story with humble beginnings.
Born in August 1935, in Troyeville, a rough part of Johannesburg, Kerzner was the youngest of four children. A couple of years later, the close family moved to the nearby Bezuidenhout Valley. While in Johannesburg, Kerzner’s parents, who were Lithuanian immigrants, ran a café and he gives credit to his eldest sister for raising him since his parents were busy seven days a week.
Kerzner was not the best student, more of a boxer, preferring sport to books; he is surprised he made it through school without a problem. His father sent him to Damelin College for his last two years of schooling, where there was no sport to distract him.
He went to the University of the Witwatersrand to study accounting, not knowing what else to do. After graduating, he moved to Durban to do his articles at a top firm. His parents had taken up a lease for a 50-room residential hotel in the coastal city. Kerzner convinced his dad to buy another, down the road, that had a liquor license. He would work there at night, while keeping his day job as an accountant. This gave him his first taste of the industry in which he was to make his fortune.
At night, they would change the light bulbs – and the mood – in the dining room, playing some music to create a spot where the revellers and sailors could unwind. It’s a place Kerzner says was far from five-star but definitely interesting.
In 1962, things were going well for Kerzner. He was a junior partner at an auditing firm and was offered a chief financial officer job at a big industrial company. Instead he bought the lease of the Astra Hotel in the backstreets of Durban.
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“I can’t tell you exactly why, I just got the urge to give up the profession [accountancy] and actually get involved in the hotel [business].”
While he was saying his goodbyes, one of his clients, Herald Franckle, asked why he was doing this when his career in auditing was going so well.
“I’m going to build South Africa’s first great hotel,” Kerzner said.
Kerzner had been receiving brochures from holiday destinations like Miami and Hawaii, and looking around Durban he realized South Africa wasn’t in the same league.
“I’ve always had confidence that South Africa should be able to do as well as any other country.”
The Astra Hotel was just a test run to get a feel of things, complete with dinner club and cabaret to draw in a crowd. He ultimately wanted to build in Umhlanga, a few kilometres north of Durban, because he used to take his girlfriends there and thought it was a ‘nice spot’. Trying to get his vision across, and prove he wasn’t crazy, Kerzner drove Franckle to the spot he had in mind and hooked himself an investor.
At the end of 1963, the designs for his big project in Umhlanga were complete and the bulldozers were on site. But Kerzner had never been abroad, so in November he flew to Miami, via New York. After checking in at the hotel, Kerzner asked a cab driver to show him every hotel in Miami Beach. The trip lasted from midday to 2AM the next morning. By lunchtime the following day, he was back on a flight to New York and recalls hearing about John F. Kennedy’s assassination while he was in the elevator. When Americans were weeping, he spent the night in New York looking at hotel lobbies
and restaurants.
He was convinced his designs were as good as what he had seen in the United States. Kerzner recalls articles in the Sunday Times calling him crazy and over capitalized. He was in his twenties and little worried him. His bet paid off and turned out to be exactly what South Africans were waiting for.
In 1964, the 88-room Beverly Hills Hotel, boasting uninterrupted views of the Indian Ocean, became South Africa’s first five-star hotel, with a R1 million price tag at the time.
The Elangeni Hotel in Durban was bigger and attracted a lot more financing since Kerzner now had some credibility. While he was building it, South African Breweries approached him and together they founded one of South Africa’s largest hotel groups, Southern Sun, now Tsogo Sun. Kerzner later founded Sun International.
A casino license was to prove a spur. A concession was up for grabs in Bophuthatswana, an independent homeland of the apartheid regime. Kerzner and his team won the concession with a warning to deliver.
This became Sun City, a renowned resort around 150 kilometers north west of Johannesburg. The four hotels, two Gary Player-designed golf courses, manmade lake, artificial rainforest and entertainment center took about 10 years to complete. When the resort first opened in 1979, the place was so overwhelmed the doors had to be locked. The estimates of 2,000 day visitors were way off with almost 15,000 turning up that first weekend. Kerzner laughs about how he had to come out with a megaphone to turn people away. The 6,000-seater Entertainment Centre opened with Frank Sinatra in 1981, in breach of the cultural boycott imposed on the country.
“He [Sinatra] walked in, he got on stage and he started singing with the orchestra and he stopped after a few bars and said ‘Sol, I’ve played all over the world… I’ve never played in a room with the sound as what you’ve created here, this is the best room I’ve ever worked in.’”
Kerzner sold his stake in Southern Sun in 1983 and a deal to sell out of Sun International was finalized in 1992. He left South Africa for London in 1987 to break into the international market as he felt he had reached the ceiling at home. It was tough because of the negative feeling towards South Africa at the time. Sentiment changed after Nelson Mandela’s release from prison in 1990.
Two months after his release, Mandela’s office called Kerzner to discuss a meeting. It took place at Kerzner’s Johannesburg home and was about his relationship with the then president of Bophuthatswana, Kgosi Lucas Manyane Mangope, and Zulu chief, Mangosuthu Buthelezi. Mandela wanted to create a united South Africa and wanted Kerzner’s help.
When Kerzner asked Mandela about his thoughts about the controversies surrounding Sun City, the then future statesman said he thought it was great that a young man was creating thousands of jobs out in the countryside.
The business was not easy. Kerzner had to face bribery allegations. In the late 80s there was a long investigation into an alleged R2 million bribe to Transkei‘s prime minister, George Matanzima, for exclusive gambling rights.
Kerzner soldiered on to build award-winning international ventures that include Atlantis Paradise Island in the Bahamas, the One &amp; Only Resorts and The Palm in Dubai.
The Bahamas adventure began when Kerzner was approached by an investment bank to see if he was interested in American entertainer Merv Griffin’s bankrupt Paradise Island resort. He bought it in 1994 and launched into a major redevelopment and expansion program – demolishing the entire front and creating a nearly 60-hectare aquarium that allows you to walk under the sea. The resort ran throughout the construction with cheaper rates, scaffolding and all.
Paradise Island became Atlantis when the Governor General’s wife came over for tea one afternoon, heard the plans and said it sounded a lot like the lost city of Atlantis.
The response was great and occupancy high. Michael Jackson wanted to see it for himself. His tour of the water habitat ended in a mob of tourists taking pictures and getting autographs, none of which fazed Jackson or his bodyguard.
In 2002, the One &amp; Only Resorts were launched in tourist destinations. In 2009, the $128-million, six-star and seven-story One &amp; Only in Cape Town’s V&amp;A Waterfront opened six months ahead of schedule.
Located on Dubai’s manmade Palm Jumeirah is The Atlantis Palm Dubai, a $1.5–billion and 1,539-room joint venture between Kerzner International Holdings Limited (KIHL) and Istithmar World, a private equity and venture capital arm of Dubai World Corporation. Home to a seven-hectare waterpark and 65,000 marine animals, it survived a fire in its lobby before its $20-million opening. Being the biggest opening the company has ever had, a lot of the money was committed before the global financial crash, so the show went on. It featured impromptu performances from friends like Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson and Natalie Cole, as well as fireworks by the same company that lit up the Beijing Olympics.
Istithmar bought out Kerzner’s 50% stake in the resort in 2012 and sold it last year to the Investment Corporation of Dubai (ICD), the emirate’s sovereign wealth fund.
Kerzner historically had no capital and relied on financing and strategy, and as a result his ventures had always been financed conservatively. This policy changed in 2006. His son Howard ‘Butch’ was chief executive officer and told him it was a great time to go private. The markets were great and everyone was doing it. The company was taken private in a reported $4 billion buyout; a $2.6 billion mortgage to finance this came at a most inopportune time.
The global recession led to a decline in leisure travel. The situation in the Bahamas was bad. The group also had to face the threat of competition from Baha Mar, which had found a new financial backer and builder in the Export-Import Bank of China and the China State Construction Engineering Corporation, and was being built less than 10 miles away from Atlantis Paradise Island. Brookfield Asset Management held a small piece of the Kerzner loan, $175 million, and went into debt restructuring talks – converting the debt into equity. Brookfield took ownership of the Atlantis and One &amp; Only Ocean Club in the Bahamas, as well as a 50% stake in the One &amp; Only Palmilla, in Mexico, but KIHL held on to long-term management contracts for
the properties.
In 2006, when Butch died in a helicopter crash in the Dominican Republic, Kerzner took two weeks off to figure out if he would take the helm again. This was in the midst of building phase three of Atlantis. It was work that eventually helped him through that difficult time. It was then that he knew it would never be a family business.
“He was one of the few sons who was able to stand up in terms of talent to a great father, and you don’t see that much in my business,” Donald Trump once told the Los Angeles Times about Butch.
The ICD purchased a significant, yet unspecified, stake in KIHL for an undisclosed amount; Kerzner stepped down as chairman and was replaced by Mohammed Al Shaibani.
There is no question in Kerzner’s mind that there are still some investment opportunities in Africa’s hospitality industry. He believes that Africa has opened up and is a whole new ball game.
Although Kerzner has retired, he’s not ready to sit around and do nothing. He is involved in a joint €790-million bid for Club Med with Andrea Bonomi, a former chairman of Banca Popolare di Milano.
During his career, Kerzner planned to open hotels in Zimbabwe and built Chobe Game Lodge in Botswana. He recalls taking in Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton for what was to be a two-day visit. When Kerzner got back to his friends two weeks later he found out that not only had they not left, but had decided to get married on the banks of the Chobe.
A 50-year career has its fair share of mistakes.
“In business, if you’re going to be successful and do things that are a little out of the ordinary, invariably you’re going to make mistakes.”
He just tries to avoid the very big ones and has had too much fun to do much differently. One missed opportunity was turning down an offer to be the first person to get involved in a gambling operation in Macau. Another big mistake was going private.
“It’s not only all about how much money you would have made and what you would have got. It’s about having a little bit of fun, being able to create things.”
The part of the business that excited Kerzner most was creating it all and watching it come to life. He feels that his intricate involvement in the design process is part of the reason he has succeeded.
When you are this enthused by what you do, it’s hard to balance work and family. Kerzner has been married and divorced four times, has four children and 10 grandchildren. He feels blessed to have the family and friends he has and admits that he perhaps got a little too carried away with his work.
After a quashed unauthorized biography, we can only hope for a sanctioned one giving greater insight into this private yet well-known personality.

The  Five-Star Millionaire

The tradition of 40 years of arts brought an economic boost to the Eastern Cape, the poorest province of South Africa.
The National Arts Festival in Grahamstown saw its best ever ticket sales of more than $650,000. The local economy received nearly $31.6 million.
“The biggest growth this year came from sales on the main program, attributable largely to an expanded program aimed to commemorate the festival’s 40th birthday, and from attendance at a greatly increased number of free performances and activities aimed at the broader Grahamstown community,” says Tony Lankester, the festival’s CEO.
The two-week event in July saw artists from 40 countries stage over 2,500 performances.
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The festival created short-term jobs for local people. In 2011, Grahamstown was among the poorest places in South Africa, with an unemployment rate of more than 70%.
Lankester says organizers received nearly 1,500 job applications for the 470 posts at the festival. Most jobs were for technicians, cashiers, cleaners and theater ushers. A majority of those that were employed survive with casual jobs for the rest of the year.
“Other festivals around the world have strong volunteer pools. We have taken a position that we don’t want volunteers. It would be immoral in Grahamstown to ask people to work for free. This is their livelihood. This is the important part of our budget and what we do. That’s the direct employment and the biggest beneficiaries of an event like this are the hospitality industry, petrol stations and restaurants.”
Lankester says organizers feel pressure to create more jobs.
“Because we appear to be this massive rich entity, we punch above our weight in many respects. People expect us to do more,” he says.
In February, festival organizers launched a Creative City project that ran all year round, to stimulate grassroots art projects around Grahamstown.
“One can always argue we should do more, but as an NGO ourselves, there’s a limit to what we can achieve in just two weeks,” he says.
“Planning for 2015 is already underway with the proposals currently open. Between now and then, we have the inaugural Cape Town Fringe in September 25 to October 5, which will give us another opportunity to showcase some of the best performances South Africa has to offer,” says Lankester.
Anyone who saw the dance performance Cargo: Precious and Nile and the theater production Ubu and the Truth Commission will agree with this.
<h4>From Nasty Kingdom To The Welcome Mat</h4>
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The Grahamstown National Arts Festival has transformed itself from being a Rhodes University’s small Shakespeare festival to Africa’s largest, and arguably the world’s second largest, celebration of the arts.
“In the early stages of the festival, Grahamstown people resented outsiders, they were really nasty and they didn’t want their kingdom to be invaded. It didn’t matter what color you were. But the festival organizers said to artists, ‘even if you are banned in Cape Town, wherever, you can come to Grahamstown,’” says Adrienne Sichel, a veteran arts critic.
This year the 11-day festival had 225,538 attendees.
Nomhle Nkonyeni, a legendary Eastern Cape performing artist, was one of the first black actors to be invited to the festival in 1985. The festival honored her with the Standing Ovation award in 2013.
Nkonyeni has retired as a performer and returned home to Port Elizabeth to lend a hand in community theater.
“I am grateful for the growth of the Grahamstown festival. We are coming a long way. But we are still struggling as the community-based theater and the R20,000 government grant cannot take you anywhere. How do you stage a production on that?” she says.
Nkonyeni urged grassroots artists not to give up, citing her experience with director Athol Fugard in the 1960s. While she was humbled at being recognized last year, she is proud that her career started in community theater.
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Ladies And Gentlemen…  A $31-Million Festival

In the four decades of entertaining festival-goers, the annual National Arts Festival in Grahamstown has transformed itself from being a small Rhodes University Shakespeare Festival to Africa’s largest extravaganza of art, theater, film, music and more.
The festival’s 40-year anniversary was celebrated with some spectacular performances. And there was the powerful Marikana Musical, capturing the events of the Marikana massacre in South Africa in which 34 striking platinum miners were killed by policemen in 2012.
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The event has evolved, featuring festivals within the main festival. Since its inception in 1997, the Standard Bank Jazz Festival has been one of the highlights. This year, everybody watched to see if it would live up to its reputation. And it did.
The Jazz Festival director Alan Webster invited Grammy award-winning composer and conductor Maria Schneider, who played to a full house. Some of South Africa’s big names in jazz at the festival were Jimmy Dludlu, Hugh Masekela and Sibongile Khumalo.
The Student Theatre Festival’s line-up promised a strong future for South African theater. A number of the plays were around issues and scenes that directly affect the ‘born frees’ – children born post 1994.
Anthea Garman, Rhodes professor and Think!Fest curator, had thinkers and authors in conversation for the duration of the festival. New books were also launched.
The famous Village Green proved to be a popular haunt during the day, between shows, for hot meals and cold beer. Grahamstown’s oldest landmark, 1820 Settlers Monument, had free performances every evening. A number of projects are being developed to position the town as a year-round ‘creative city’.
Ismail Mohamed, director of the National Arts Festival, summed it up as a success.
“Celebrating artistic excellence was central to the festival’s program. We are bold and courageous to take calculated risks on untested works. We have often been surprised by the gems that we’ve discovered.”
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“Often the idea of community theater is associated with black amateurs, and it remains locked in that. When people talk about the mainstream, we often talk about white, musical theater, commercial stuff that plays in Monte Casino [in Johannesburg]&#8230;I still see a lot of that in festivals like this. It still feels like there are certain audiences for certain things. There’s very little crossover in those worlds. So, those who are able to be present, we should be taking on that challenge. I am trying to encourage crossover and encourage exploding these outdated notions about theater.”
– Lindiwe Matshikiza, 31-year-old actor and director of children’s play Donkey Child. She has also starred in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom
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FWA-2014-Aug-Sep-076-077-Grahamstown-001

Africa’s Greatest Arts Festival

It’s not uncommon for flight stewardesses to attract the occasional – and often derisive – comment that they are nothing but ‘trolley dollies’ or ‘waitresses in the sky’. Having been an airhostess for over three decades, Neil Haasbroek should know.
But for Haasbroek and many others of her generation, these remarks didn’t matter. What did was that it was a profession they adored, and one that came with its own sense of pride, dignity and discipline.
Described as “the angel in the blue dress” during a tea party in her honor in Johannesburg, South Africa, Haasbroek, now 80 and settled in the city, is one of the longest-serving airhostesses of one of Africa’s oldest airlines – South African Airways (SAA).
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She began her career in 1957, when SAA was known as SAL (Suid-Afrikaanse Lugdiens) and the country was ruled by the apartheid government. The airline wore a different look then: the tail of its body was orange and it sported a leaping navy blue springbok.
She had joined at a time when being an airhostess was seen as a short-term career option for women before entering their next phase of life – marriage.
But not for Haasbroek. She broke stereotypes and ended up working with SAA for 36 years.
“I had never thought that I would become an airhostess because I thought that I was too short at the time, and not as beautiful as I imagined an airhostess should be,” says Haasbroek.
It was only after she saw a newspaper advertisement that she thought it would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Little did she know then she would spend almost half her life in the skies.
Haasbroek talks of how she moved up the ranks after a two-and-half year stint as a domestic flight attendant to later serve on international routes.
“I remember for the first six months, we only traveled to Australia, those were long flights – 23 hours,” she laughs.
“Thereafter, the world was my oyster. I spent 11 years traveling overseas.”
She then became a check-flight hostess, tasked with inspecting the conduct of the crew. Her most favorite role was as instructor and chief airhostess of the airline.
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“It was very exciting to get a group of girls that I had to train and be like a mother to them, and solve their problems,” says Haasbroek. Part of her job was to make sure the crew looked the part.
“Before every flight, I had to check their hair, make-up, nails and weight. They had to be well-groomed at all times. It was a wonderful career. I loved interacting with people, every flight for me was special and I could leave all my worries at home.” While many of her colleagues got married and had children, Haasbroek was married to her work, and every year, as new aspirants joined the airline, she treated them like her own children.
“I always say one of my greatest regrets was not having children of my own, but the hostesses became my daughters,” she says.

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