After 21 years in charge of the African Travel and Tourism Association (Atta) as CEO, Nigel Vere Nicoll will hand over the reins to Chris Mears, currently COO, on January 1.
Nicoll was Managing Director of Wild Africa Safaris UK in 1994 and became a founding member of Atta. Two years later he took on the management of Atta, increasing membership from around 45 to just under 600 today in 22 countries in Africa and 42 worldwide.
Nicoll will be appointed President of Atta from January 1, a new role where he will act as the figurehead of the association, handling media, and the dialogue between political and corporate leaders of the industry.
Julian Edmunds is the current Chair, appointed last May. Atta has also named its last two Chairs, Ross Kennedy and Anita Powell as its first Life Fellows, and Ingram Casey, its former South African Director, as Ambassador.
Mears, the new CEO, is well known in the travel industry. He joined Acacia Africa in London in 2000. He then moved to South Africa and was instrumental in setting up and running the Cape Town office, initially as Manager and subsequently as Director.
In 2018, Mears will work closely with organisers Talking Stick Marketing and Communications following the success of Experience Latin America (ELA), which will launch Experience Africa by Atta. This new B2B travel trade show, a three-day event, will take place from June 25-27. Experience Africa is an appointment-driven show, and will be held at Canary Wharf, London. It will provide a platform for suppliers from Africa and buyers from the UK and across Europe to do business.
Megan Taplin has been appointed new Area Manager for the Knysna section of the Garden Route National Park.
Taplin has worked for South African National Parks since 2001. Her first job was in Addo Elephant National Park as an Environmental Control Officer and she was later promoted to Roads Project Manager with Vuka Environmental Services. She then took up a position as a Social Ecologist at Addo in 2003. Taplin was then appointed Regional Communications and Marketing Manager for the Frontier Region (Addo, Camdeboo, Karoo and Mountain Zebra). In 2012, she was appointed Park Manager for the Mountain Zebra National Park (Cradock).
Johan de Klerk, who was the Area Manager for Knysna for the last three years, has moved to Mokala National Park in the Northern Cape.
Nicolas Craninx is InterContinental Hotels Group’s Director of Hotel Performance Support in Africa. Craninx will lead performance and operations of 17 IHG hotels across the region and will be based in IHG’s Johannesburg offices.
Craninx began his career in South Africa in 1992 at Protea Hotels. Recently, in England, he led Crowne Plaza Harrogate’s conversion from a Holiday Inn to Crowne Plaza.
