Watch the full Summit

Welcome Speeches

Current Economic Outlook, predictions and Recovery plan for 2022
Mark Beer, OBE, Chairman of Metis Institute in conversation with Professor Ian Goldin, Professor of Globalisation and Development, University of Oxford

Restarting the Travel and Tourism sector
Gerald Lawless, Director, ITIC in a One-to-one Conversation with Julia Simpson, CEO, WTTC

Building tourism resilience by expanding air connectivity
Rajan Datar, Presenter and Broadcaster, BBC in conversation with Hon. Edmund Bartlett, Minister of Tourism of Jamaica and Ghaith Al Ghaith, CEO of Flydubai

Discover Botswana
Presentation by Hon. Phildah Kereng, Minister of Environment, Natural Resources Conservation and Tourism

ITIC Tourism Investment MINISTERIAL PANEL
Reimaging incentives to attract FDI to tourism destinations and to reposition the industry as a main driver of economic growth

Shackle – Your Next Generation Hotel
Project Presentation by Mark Abraham, Founder & CEO, Shackle

Health: Investment in regional vaccination plants as a pre-requisite to restore trust in travel and tourism

Development of a new Lifestyle Tourism City in San Pedro, Cote D’Ivoire
Presentation by Joseph Grah, Project Development Partner

Presentation by Manuel González Buiza, CEO, Tourism Optimizer Platform

How to attract tourism and investments from China towards the global recovery
Presentation by Marcus Lee, Chairman of Association of SME Business owner

Restructuring travel and tourism businesses to lower debt exposure, with new strategic investments to return to profitability path

Destination Focus: Investment opportunities in the United Kingdom
A thought-provoking discussion between Rajan Datar, Presenter and Broadcaster, BBC and Christopher Rodrigues, Chairman of the Maritime & Coastguard Agency and former Chairman of Visit Britain

Re-energising regional destinations through branding and investments to boost tourist arrivals

Closing – Conversation

A UAE national, Ghaith Al Ghaith is Chief Executive Officer of Dubai-based flydubai which was launched in 2008.

Al Ghaith has a long track record in aviation. He started his career at Emirates Airline joining in 1986 as a Management Trainee. During his more than twenty year career at Emirates Airline he held a number of positions including Executive Vice-President Commercial Operations Worldwide and Area Manager UK and Ireland.

Al Ghaith holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from the University of Arizona, USA.

Hon. Philda Nani Kereng, is the Minister of Environment, Natural Resources Conservation & Tourism of Botswana. She has brought a new impetus to the tourism industry of her country by revising the tourism policy so as to enhance the participation of the country’s citizens in the tourism industry and to diversify the tourism products across the country.

She has devised strategies to accelerate the recovery of Botswana tourism industry through the networking of its different partners so as to achieve synergy while improving sustainable conservation practices and positioning her country as a tourism and investment regional hub.

Hon. Philda Nani Kereng efforts earned due recognition as she was recently acknowledged as one of Africa’s Tourism Board Key Leaders in Africa.

She has also been active on the social front since 1995. She held until 2001 the post of Chief of Surveys and Follow ups of the Rural Industries Innovation Center, planning and managing nation-wide sociological research projects to improve industrial and farming activities.

Furthermore, she has also been a Project Officer for Community Development of the Action for Economic Empowerment Trust, a local partner of the US African Development Foundation (ADF), working closely with rural communities to identify, plan and manage community ecotourism projects.

Her grassroots knowledge of the Botswana’s society led the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to appoint her as Child Protection Officer to drive the national programme on orphan care and child services in collaboration with NGOs and CBOs. She was also instrumental in the development of the Children’s Act of 2009.

Hon. Philda Nani Kereng received an award for being one of Africa’s Tourism Board (ATB)’s Key Leader in Africa at the first East African Regional Tourism Expo on the 9 October 2021. The award recognizes her excellence in driving development of sound tourism recovery strategies. Such strategies include the review of tourism regulations, the Tourism Policy, development of climate change and response and integrated waste management Policy amongst the few.

Hon. Philda Nani Kereng holds a B.A. in Public Administration and Sociology as well as a Masters in Sociology of Development (UK).

In parallel to her State responsibilities, she is an associate pastor in a local church and often acts as counselor and life coach for families, women and young people.

He has 30 years of experience in various disciplines such as: media, advertising and marketing, during which he was included in many positions, ending in senior leadership positions in the last 15 years, in addition to specialized study. During these long years, he was able to build and strengthen a strong network of working relationships with various stakeholders in the media, advertising and marketing industry inside Egypt, the Arab region and internationally.

During the past 24 years, he worked with the largest international companies specialized in the fields of media and advertising, such as Horizon Advertising Company, the British Lowe Advertising Company, Lowe Worldwide, Mindshare worldwide and finally DDB Worldwide. During these years he included in different positions until he reached senior management positions since 2003 and Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of one of the largest marketing groups since 2014.

During his work with these companies, he had the opportunity to work with major international brands such as Vodafone, Coca-Cola, Unilever, HSBC, Samsung, in addition to major local and regional advertisers, in addition to his responsibility for the promotional campaigns of the Ministry of Tourism in the Arab and European markets.

Mr. Amr El-Kady has been a member of the Committee of Experts related to Tourism Promotion in the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities since 2020, the committee formed by the ministerial decree to be responsible for the international and internal tourism promotion file, in addition to his membership in the committee for preparing the marketing and media strategy for tourism in Egypt which was implemented by the Canadian-British alliance and which was completed during the month of August.

Mr. Joseph is the Director of Humanitarian Affairs of AFRIJAPAN-AFRICASIA INTERNATONAL COOPERATION since 2017. An African International Organization working to promote economic and diplomatic cooperation between Africa and Japan and eight other Asian countries.

Mr. Joseph joined this organization after 12 years working at the United Nations, in East and West Africa, where he respectively held the positions of Electoral Civic Education Officer and Civil Affairs Officer. These positions provided him with a great sense of understanding and analysis of the sociological, economic, political and security variables and dynamics that shape the daily lives of people in West and East Africa.

Mr. Joseph holds a PhD in International Relations and Diplomacy and a Master Degree in Political Science. He has obtained several training certificates in different fields including Peace and Security, Civil-Military Relations, Good Governance and Gender, Civil Affairs etc.

Since 2004 to date, Joseph has carried out multiple technical assistance and training missions on the organization of elections, intercommunity conflict management, good governance and protection of civilians in the West and East African regions. He has worked extensively on the thorny dynamics of local and foreign armed groups and inter-community conflicts in Eastern DRC.

He is co-founder of the Centre de Recherche et d’Études Stratégiques au Kivu based in DR-Congo and co-founder of the Ephrata University and the Institut National Supérieur des Sciences de Agricoles et de l’Alimentation (INSSA-AL EPHRATA) in Cote d’Ivoire. Mr. Joseph is also the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Reseau CEP-International and the Director of International Relations and Development of GROUPE DIAMANA a medical research organisation working on the incurable pathologies.

Finally Mr. Joseph is the Ambassador of the African Tourism Board to Cote d’Ivoire with the mandate to promote the organisation vision and objectives that are to rebrand tourism industry in Africa and rewrite the narrative of African continent.