Question 1: Cape Town’s water woes have been in the news — is the city really running out of water? Are meetings and events’ guests regarded by the authorities as part of the problem or part of the solution? 

Daryl Keywood: Following three consecutive years of lower than normal winter rainfall Cape Town does have a serious water shortage, but the city is not running out of water. A successful campaign to reduce domestic water consumption by implementing a theoretical “Day Zero” succeeded in reducing the city’s water usage by 50%. That combined with agricultural restrictions helped to avoid any water cuts for 2018 and Day Zero has now been completely cancelled. I must emphasize that at no stage was water going to be cut to the city’s business district or the major tourism infrastructure like the hotels, etc. The water saving campaign was forceful, as it had to be to encourage residential savings and this unfortunately resulted in some erroneous reporting and negative publicity.

Tourism, including meetings and events, consumes less than 1% of Cape Town’s water. Conversely, the economic benefit is important in terms of employment with approximately 30,000 jobs relying on tourism. Visitors are encouraged to save water whilst visiting the city and many hotels have placed water conservation awareness signs in rooms and asked guests to indicate whether they wish towels etc to be laundered. Agriculture however consumes over 30% of Cape Town’s water resources and was therefore a logical place to make meaningful savings. As the harvest is now almost complete farmers agreed to reduce irrigating to ensure that the city had sufficient water. With the winter rainfall season about to commence Cape Town’s six major dams are at an average of 23% full and good winter rains will hopefully avoid the same situation occurring next year.

Question 2: Do you anticipate other cities in the world suffering a similar fate in the foreseeable future? 

Daryl Keywood: Cape Town is not alone, Los Angeles, Sydney, Sao Paulo and others all face a similar water crisis. Cape Town has managed to more than halve its water consumption and other cities are learning from Cape Town’s experience. We are generally a wasteful society and much can be done, such as reduced flow taps and shower nozzles, planting indigenous trees and plants that consume less water …and turning off the tap when brushing our teeth! That might sound whimsical, but if everyone saved a little then together we’d make a meaningful difference.

Cape Town has relied almost completely on rain-fed dams for its water supply. There are many other sources including water aquifers, collecting and storing water runoff from roofs, as well as desalination which is the major source of water in much of The Middle East including, Saudi Arabia, Israel and the popular tourist destination of Dubai. Cape Town is currently installing two desalination plants and several hotels including The Westin, The Cullinan and others are planning to be, or are already, completely off the water grid through collection and recycling efforts. The precinct around the Cape Town International Convention Centre is partially below sea level and therefore needs to pump out “brack” water from its parking basements to prevent flooding. A reverse osmosis purification system currently being installed for this precinct will supply all the fresh water needs for well over 1200 hotel rooms.

Question 3: As a senior SITE main board director do you see a role for SITE to demonstrate leadership? Perhaps a joint SITE/MPI Task Force? 

Daryl Keywood: I believe each city or region needs to consider its own unique situation and work towards local solutions whether for water savings or other environmental issues. Also, the  environmental impact of bringing large numbers to a destination has to be weighed against the negative economic impact that would result if an incentive or conference group did not materialize because tourism is for many developing countries the primary economic growth driver (in South Africa one job is created for every four tourists visiting). A lesson learned from the challenges of the past few years is that things happen when industry comes together, as we did under the “Meetings Means Business” coalition. The Boards of SITE and MPI recently met to discuss synergies during our co-located SITE/MPI Global Forum in Rome. Collaboration was definitely on the agenda and we will see industry come together more often in future. At SITE we have a Sustainability Task Force ably headed by Aoife Delaney and Eda Ozden, fine-tuning SITE’s approach to sustainability in the current and future environment.

Question 4: What do you see as the biggest threat and the biggest opportunity for Walthers in the next ten years? 

Daryl Keywood: Without a doubt the largest threat to our industry is the reaction of our clients and participants to media reports that are often based on only a part of the real story. A good example of how inaccurate media can negatively impact our business was the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014 where the media’s lust for the dramatic rather than the accurate resulted in cancellations for Cape Town from European clients who were invariably much closer to the outbreak than Cape Town was. London, Paris and even parts of Brazil were in fact closer to the affected area.

We have an imminent incentive program for a UK client traveling to Madagascar, a country that has recently experienced an outbreak of the Plague as well as this past week a tropical cyclone. Potentially, if inaccurately reported, these challenges could result in the cancellation of the program but the real facts are that the Plague outbreak is under control and in a different region of the country and the cyclone season is February/March and the program travels in June.

At Walthers there is no doubt that we see our pristine region with its many UNESCO World Heritage sites, amazing Flora and Fauna as well as our friendly people as our USP for drawing business to our destinations. While many parts of the world are over-developed and over-populated Africa leaves one with a “sense of being” which captivates our clients and ensures that many return. It is our responsibility to ensure that we offer our clients experiences that enhance their appreciation for our destinations without harming or impacting the environment. At Walthers we never offer animal interactions that are unethical and we are signatories to the Born to Live Wild pledge. We are also committed to Fair Trade Tourism, making purchasing decisions that guarantee a better life for people in Southern Africa and beyond; and finally to ECPAT’s Code of Conduct to protect children from sexual exploitation.

[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]