Tourism as our playground
Coffeebeans Routes is a South African travel specialist founded by Jethro Louw and Iain Harris. It comes from a focus to help, educate, employ, and support disadvantaged communities in townships. Looking for additional components in their political history classes, they started to visit local musicians in South African townships. It turned out to be extremely powerful for people to visit these considered unsafe places they heard of but didn’t have access to.
They decided to take more people out and develop a structure around their visits. Iain: “When developing the Cape Town Jazz Safari, we were just playing tourism. We re-shaped how we thought about the tourism product. Clear economic development and less changing the world. More focus on having fun, making music, and creating some local income. The model worked!”
Premium content
The full article is available to members only. To read on, sign in or create a free account.
Responses
I like the idea of a two-way relationship. Local communities really have alot to offer as value added services to travellers. Things like traditional songs or dances, hand- made creative items and many others.
The locals should be made to understand that they are providing a service and not rely on begging or waiting for handouts.
Yes exactly, good to hear you agree. It’s all about creating a sustainable business model where everyone benefits!