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Prof Ernie Heath, who grew up in Fort Beaufort in the Eastern Cape and currently resides in Nelson Mandela Bay, was recognised as a winner of an Africa Tourism Leadership Award at the Africa Tourism Leadership Forum held in Botswana in October, for his contribution to Tourism Education and Development in Africa over more than four decades.
The Africa Tourism Leadership Awards, which is the only pan-African industry award of its nature in Africa, recognises and celebrates change-makers and innovation pioneered by Africans, in Africa, for African travel, tourism, hospitality, and aviation industries.
Recognition that Heath has received throughout his career for his local and international contributions to the advancement of responsible tourism include a United Nations World Tourism Organization Themis Award in recognition for his contribution to the global development of research, education, and training in tourism; a Skål International Presidential Award for his contribution to the development of tourism in South Africa; the Chairman’s Award of Merit from the Indian Ocean Tourism Organization for creating the umbrella destination organisation’s first Strategic Plan; recognition as a Destination Champion by Destinations International; and an Alumni Achiever Award from Nelson Mandela University.
In the tourism academic sphere, he has also been recognised at various levels including receiving a Laureates Award from the University of Pretoria for Innovation in Teaching; a Best PhD Supervisor Award at the Advances in Tourism Marketing Conference in Slovenia; co-receiving a Best Research Paper Award at the International Conference on Tourism and Events held in Belfast; two Best Teacher Awards from the University of Applied Sciences, Bremen, Germany; and a Tourism Educators South Africa (TESA) Lifetime Achiever Award.
Through the years he also played an active role in various international tourism organisations, including serving on the Executive Committee of the Education Council of the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO); being a specialist strategic advisor to the Indian Ocean Tourism Organization (IOTO); and being the Africa Representative on the Scientific Committee for the Centre International de Recherches et d’Etudeds Toursitiques (CIRET). He was also a founding trustee of Open Africa, a social enterprise, which has established more than 50 tourism routes spread across Southern Africa.
Heath received his Doctor of Commerce in Business Management from Nelson Mandela University in 1987, with a thesis entitled “The need for and the development of a strategic planning framework for regional tourism in South Africa”.
In the early 1990’s he was deputy executive director of South African Tourism, where he was, among others, responsible for the very successful “Explore South Africa” campaign, which was launched at the annual Tourism Indaba by President Nelson Mandela in 1995.
In the latter part of his career, Heath was head of the Department of Tourism Management at the University of Pretoria for 16 years, where he played a key leadership and pioneering role, as both an academic and practitioner in the local and international tourism spheres.
“Receiving this recognition at this stage of my life was rather unexpected, yet a pleasant surprise and very humbling,” said Heath.
“I feel very privileged to have had an enriching and fulfilling journey of more than four decades in various spheres of the very exciting and dynamically changing tourism industry. Two of the key lessons that I have learned in this great industry, which can do so much for many, is that in tourism not one of us is as good as all of us and every one of us can make a difference.”
After retiring from the University of Pretoria at the end of January 2016, Heath relocated to his home province, the Eastern Cape, and continues to contribute to the tourism sphere. He remains passionate about advancing responsible tourism in Africa to the benefit of the people of the continent.
