Houston Travel Marketing Services

 Houston Travel Marketing Services (HTMS) has been in operation for 30 years. Currently HTMS organises the well known SPOTLIGHT ON AFRICA Workshops and roadshows in South Africa,various countries in Africa and in the Nordics and Eastern Europe  visit www.spotlightworkshops.co.za for more details HTMS are the Africa Representatives for REED TRAVEL EXHIBITIONS who organise 20 Exhibitions worldwide. WTM portfolio – WTM London-Arabian Travel Market Dubai-WTM Latin America & World Travel Market Africa in Cape Town. Meetings & Incentives portfolio – EIBTM -IBTM Africa Cape Town-IBTM Arabia AbuDhabi-IBTM America -IBTM India and CIBTM China Derek Houston travels widely in Africa and is regarded as an expert in the new and emerging source markets for Africa I started the Spotlight Workshop concept in 2000 to assist the Tourism community in the rest of Africa to gain a foothold in the South African Outbound market. I saw a great need to introduce them to the major Travel agents and Tour operators to allow them to network and create business opportunities. At the same time there was tremendous shortfall in information on the tourism potential of Africa within the South African travel industry and of course there was the perception that it is unsafe to travel into Africa. For their part many Hotel groups and Tour operators in Africa did not realize the potential of the South African outbound market and viewed the American and European markets are more important and profitable. Events over the past five years has shown them that the international market can be very fickle whilst the South African market has shown to be more stable and less affected by incidents and security concerns etc. The basic principle of Spotlight is to invite a diverse range of tourism organizations from all over Africa and take them on a one week roadshow around South Africa to meet Travel agents, Tour operators, incentive travel companies, Professional Conference organisers and corporate travel buyers in each centre.