Dave Herbert stepped down in May as managing director of African Travel, a company he founded 34 years ago that was acquired by TravCorp in 2003. Now he has created a new company in partnership with Goway Travel called Great Safaris. Senior Editor Michelle Baran spoke with Herbert about his new venture and the state of the African travel market.
Q: Why did you ultimately decide to leave African Travel, a company you founded, and TravCorp?
A: I wanted to be an owner/entrepreneur again. ... I've been an entrepreneur since I was 21 years of age. I was with Travel Corporation for a relatively short period of time. They're a fine organization, but it wasn't in my DNA to be part of a larger organization.
Q: What made you decide to launch Great Safaris?
A: [After leaving African Travel] I took off, and I went down to South Africa just after the World Cup. I realized that we're on the first run as far as [the U.S.] market's concerned. I still believe that we've got far better days ahead of us, as far as African tourism, than behind us. And being there just after the World Cup, there was still a good number of people there, it really opened people's eyes who would have never thought of going there before. I'm very bullish on African tourism, and that's one of the things that's given me the motivation and enthusiasm to start a new business.
Q: What are the opportunities in Africa?
A: I saw a tremendous amount of capacity, luxury capacity, in hotels and lodges that have been added in southern Africa in the last couple of years. And of course, after the World Cup, after everyone went home, there's a tremendous amount of extra capacity.
Q: How does Great Safaris differ from African Travel?
A: I've formed a joint venture with Goway Travel, the Canadian-based company in Toronto. ... What Goway brings to the party, it's two very important things that I didn't have in my previous business. One, they have the technology. They have a great reservation system, which is tailor-made for FIT. It's called TravelBox; it's a proprietary system. And we immediately have plugged into that. And they've got the communications. We're linking our offices in Africa through high-speed data lines. Immediately with a new business, I've got many years of advanced communications and technology. By March of next year we'll be operating on a 24/7 basis. ... I've never been in that position to have that type of technology.
Q: Why the luxury tailor-made FIT market?
A: That's where we see the growth. We see the future in the upmarket, sophisticated traveler. Africa is not a destination for American tourists. It's really one for travelers. Africa is the next stop.
We've just seen this trend over a number of years. It's the family, small groups, extended families and individual travelers that want to have an individual experience. They've traveled on group tours, but Africa is very much an a la carte destination. And there's really very few people which are able to handle that with technology. Most of our competitors in the market are very much using yellow [note] pads to put together FITs. There's really not the FIT technology out there.
Q: What challenges does the continent still face?
A: I've never met an American that does not have a dream of going to Africa. The hurdles are education. I really intend to make a very focused approach of educating specific agents on Africa. Training is not just taking site inspection trips.