Introducing Derek Houston
On January 15th, 2025 I will have been involved in the travel industry for 60 years. I started my career in Pretoria with S.A.TOURISM and also worked in the Harare Zimbabwe Satour office.
In 1969 I joined Trafalgar Tours in Johannesburg as Sales Manager and in 1972 I traveled overseas to London to broaden my travel experience.
I spent three interesting years in London working for a number of travel agencies and tour operators.
I returned to South Africa in 1975 where I worked for Thomas Cook Travel as Assistant Branch Manager and as Branch Manager of Jet International Travel in Johannesburg.
In 1979 I transferred to Sunshine Tours as Marketing Director where I spent 4 years helping to build up the company into a major outbound wholesaler and in expanding its product range significantly.
But in 1984, I felt it was time to do my own thing and that is when I started Houston Travel Marketing Services cc….and we are still here 40 years later!!
Initially, our main focus was advertising Sales for THE GSA Travel Magazine (the leading travel trade monthly directory in SA).
In 1984 we also started our travel trade database offering mailing and fax mailing service to travel agencies /tour operators.
Later we expanded this to an email broadcast service which reached 8000 consultants.
From 1986 to 2001 HTMS represented ABC Travel Publications /OAGTravel Guides as Africa Subscription and marketing representative.
TRAVEL EXHIBITIONS have always played a major role in the life of HTMS. Our first exhibition was THE GREAT SAFARI SHOW in 1988 and 1989 in co-operation with Systems Exhibitions. Then in 1994 and 1995, we launched WORLD HOLIDAY and TRAVEL FAIR with AA Kyalami.
In 1995, Reed Travel Exhibitions (RX Global) in London approached me to represent and sell their events throughout Sub Sahara Africa. RX Global is the world’s largest travel trade exhibition company with 13 exhibitions in their portfolio including WORLD TRAVEL MARKET in London.
Together with Reed, we organised and promoted AFRICA TRAVEL MARKET in Johannesburg in 1996 and 1997 but ATM did not achieve our earlier expectations and a decision was made to cancel it.
WTM Africa Cape Town
In 2014 Reed launched WTM Africa in Cape Town as an inbound and outbound travel exhibition.
From 2014 to 2018, I was very involved in the launch of WTM Africa and with the exhibition stand sales to exhibitors through out Africa
IBTM World Barcelona
In 2007 I was appointed as the Africa Sales Representative for IBTM World Barcelona. IBTM World is the leading global MICE trade exhibition. In this role I encouraged African Tourism organisations and MICE DMC’s to exhibit at IBTM World.
Spotlight
In 2000 HTMS started the SPOTLIGHT ON AFRICA series of workshops to promote “Africa” as a whole to various markets both in Africa and overseas.
Over the last 20 years, HTMS has grown its portfolio of travel trade workshops under the Spotlight brand and we now run 12 trade workshops sessions around Africa.
In 2005 and 2006 a Spotlight and Africa Roadshow was held in Ireland and in 2006 in Holland and Belgium.
In 2007 the workshops were held in Copenhagen, Brussels, and Amsterdam., Scotland, Leeds, and Cambridge.
In 2009 we held our first Nordics “Seashow” with workshop sessions on board ship. This was a great success and was repeated in 2009 and 2010 after WTM.
In 2010 We added Central Europe to the Spotlight Portfolio with workshop sessions in Vienna, Budapest, and Prague. It was such a success that it was repeated every year to include Warsaw in Poland and Bucharest in Romania.
Spotlight workshops are now held annually in African cities such as Harare, Gaborone, Windhoek, Maputo, Nairobi, Luanda, Addis Ababa, Dar es Salaam & Arusha.
