Based in Cape Town, the Concepts Collection incorporates both event and full destination management and are renowned for creating distinctive luxury experiences across Southern Africa. Its founder, Richard Holt, leads a multinational team of world travellers to deliver bespoke events and incentives for both corporate and private clients. We had a chat with him to find out his thoughts on the role of community in the luxury travel industry.

How does being a part of a supportive community help businesses in the luxury incentive and hospitality industries?

Relationships have always been central to business for me. Creating trusted, respected relationships with both clients and industry colleagues has been vital. Being a part of inVOYAGE and other select networks has given me the ideal platform to develop these. The commercial benefits are obvious, but equally important are the opportunities for shared learning and problem solving. The inVOYAGE community is a peer group who, at ownership level, understand each other’s trials and tribulations in building and running businesses in the event industry. A huge part of the inVOYAGE experience is being able to reach out to seek and offer support.

What do you think could be done in the wider industry to make the community even more supportive?

I think that there is further scope to combine the face-to-face meetings at inVOYAGE with virtual community platforms which are proving effective at stimulating discussion and peer support. If done correctly, I think this could be a very powerful solution. The collective knowledge, experience and intellectual capital of the wider inVOYAGE community would be hugely valuable if it could be captured and shared effectively.

What advice would you give people just starting their career in MICE, Incentive Travel and Hospitality?

Do it! You will soon realise if you were born to it or not! You might not end up in a career with huge financial wealth, but you will gain so many more riches by travelling to amazing locations, meeting fascinating people and will have plenty of unique experiences. Personally, these things are much more powerful and satisfying and will be printed on your mind forever.

In your role as Group CEO of The Concepts Collection and from other recent experience, what are the main themes and trends that you see emerging right now?

In the wake of the Covid destruction, the international leisure travel industry has bounced back with a vengeance. What we are seeing in South Africa though, as with other long-haul destinations, is that corporate MICE clients are still cautious and therefore emerging more slowly. The signs are encouraging though.

Clients can sometimes have very high expectations, and rightly so. They understand better than ever the cancellation clauses and insurance implications. Our briefs for corporate groups are very much focusing on smaller, more select groups. Clients are also booking much later that pre-Covid days which reduces lead times for both MICE and leisure projects. This requires an operational refocus and new terms with some industry partners.

Operational issues are presenting new challenges with key suppliers having gone under or moved into different industries. This is making it difficult to source both new product and talent. Our challenge is to find ways to innovate to stay ahead of the game.

Internally, as a leader, it’s about recalibrating the business and we are focusing far more now on business sanity than business vanity. We need to act smarter and become a touch leaner and meaner. Rather than restaffing and resourcing quickly, we are looking at some shorter-term project management contracts and outsourcing some key processes and select marketing activity.