WINDHOEK, Namibia — Hoteliers in Africa regularly highlight the social, environmental and economic impacts of their operating and developing hotels and lodgings, but questions remain as to whether the continent is equipped to provide more sustainable guest experiences.
Hospitality executives speaking at the recent African Hospitality Investment Forum said their firms place environmental, social and governance guidelines as principles in their stated constitutions, business plans, “about us” webpages, and in strategy and financing documents.
Success derives from showing principles in action as much as it does from talking about them across a meeting table.
At a panel titled “Conscious Hospitality: Preserving Africa’s Natural Heritage,” Gys Joubert, managing director at Gondwana Collection, which has 49 assets in Namibia ranging from camp sites with hookups to luxury lodges, said his firm has approximately 1,000 shareholders and projects in “land that does not belong to us.” This helps ensure sound ESG decisions and benefits to communities, he said.
“If tourism is not inclusive, it is not sustainable. We benefit together, and we compromise together. This is fundamental to our investment decisions, and both guests, management and communities learn how real it is,” he said.
Locations quite often are fragile, but developments can be catalysts that help preserve unique places of anthropological, natural and scenic wonder.
“The nine principles of our firm are the precursors of our ESG program. We connect all of these through an online platform, and we seek shared outcomes for biodiversity and community. We measure everything,” said Jutta Berns, head of sustainability at Karingani Game Reserve, which she said is in a largely untouched, vast wilderness in Mozambique that borders South Africa’s Kruger National Park to one side and Mozambique’s Limpopo National Park to the other.
She said high-end lodgings will begin development this year on 370,000 acres of private reserve.
Kaddu Kiwe Sebunya, CEO of the African Wildlife Foundation, said Africa has one brand, which is Africa.
"If Africans are not involved, it cannot be scaled up. Make people care, and make people benefit. Africa is ready," he said.
"Often people think planet first, and not that along with people,” he said. “African cultural tourism is worthy of being preserved, packaged and sold as an export.”
He pointed to more than 1.5 billion downloads of African music on Spotify as testament to the interest in the continent.
He also challenged AHIF attendees to start a conference working group to identify best practices.
"Next year, let us see where we are. It is not always so east for the knowledgeable people to get into those [government ministry] rooms," he said, referring to what he says is a gaping hole between words and policy.
Lopang Rapodile, manager of environmental, social and governance at Kasada Capital Management, one of Africa’s most prominent hotel-industry investors, said there is a cultural renaissance, and Africa is at the forefront of this.
She added hotels are often the first impression, so it is important to make of them a cultural highlight of what the continent has to offer.
She added she thought that from a regulatory perspective, there could exist more creativity to help this process.
“Pre-COVID-19, travelers ticked boxes. ‘I saw an elephant. I saw a rhino.’ Then there was one waiter to 18 people. Yes, the productivity was excellent, but the personal connection was zero, and that is what is now important in tourism,” Joubert said.
Measurable Mathematics
Panelists underlined Berns' plea for measurement of every key performance indicator and effect on sustainability.
“Everything we do must have a measurable impact. We turn everything over three times before we chose materials, for example. We put carbon on our balance sheet as a method of selection,” Berns said. She is an environmental economist by training.
Berns said one concern she has is that as a hotelier and manager on a reserve amid a huge tract of land, it is very easy to work alone or with a small group.
“Sustainability cuts across every silo, but as a reserve I often worry that we work too much in isolation,” she said.
One agreement Berns has developed is with a South Africa tourism school that allows young women from the adjacent buffer zone of her reserve to receive practical experience in hospitality.
Joubert said it is imperative to get approval and feedback from a country’s highest offices, and it is also necessary to educate everyone along the process.
“These government authorities have never stood for two hours in a line at a border post,” he said.
Sebunya said all hoteliers must begin to identify what he or she can do, and then start contacting government ministries.
“It is complicated, but they are there, and they are civil servants. It is always a good idea to show them what are your profits, how many people do you employ and how much tax you pay? You are powerful,” she said.
It is also important to share information with guests.
“What do they know? They might not know anything,” she said.
Berns said a shared vision among all stakeholders will keep environments as pristine and culturally interesting as possible, which will lead to more tourism.
“Pretty lodges are useless if we have no biodiversity and nothing to show,” she said.