Willie Boonzaaier will be speaking on the above topic at this month's Tourism Talk. Download the invitation at the bottom of this notice for full details. Contact Voyani to book or for more information. 012 342 8686 or 073 035 8721 or vonani@urban-econ.com

Willie is married to Alda and has two married children; Joheen and Barry.  Willie was born in the Congo from missionary children and attended Komatipoort Primary, where he grew up next to the Kruger National Park.  This probably explains his love for nature.  After studying at Nelspruit High and obtaining his matric at Lydenburg High, he completed his military training before enrolling as an article clerk with an accounting firm, where he studied part-time towards a B.Compt.

Having started his career as an accountant, he was privileged to become the first administrative officer for the Pilanesberg National Park, eventually becoming Deputy Director: Parks and Wildlife for Bop Parks (now North West Parks Board), before starting his own consulting business in 1992. He now has 35 years of practical experience in the field of biodiversity and wildlife conservation, ecotourism and protected area planning, development, management and consulting.  Willie furthered his studies during the later years of his career by completing a Bachelors and a Masters degree in Project Management in 2011.

He has been involved with the development and management of various conservation and ecotourism projects in the southern-African, Middle-Eastern and Asian regions. This amongst other includes; overseeing the planning, development and management of the world-renowned Pilanesberg National Park and Madikwe Game Reserve in South Africa and initiating the Heritage Park project linking these two protected areas across private and communal land.  More recently, he project managed the development of a management plan for the Magaliesberg Biosphere Reserve and successfully facilitated the application process with UNESCO (which will be the topic of his talk); facilitated the development of new tourism concessioning policies in Namibia; attracted new ecotourism developments into Namibian Parks and Conservancies; undertook a comprehensive feasibility assessment for opening the Royal Manas National Park in Bhutan; and just completed an Implementation Plan for unlocking tourism potentials in the Chobe-Zambezi Floodplain Complex in Namibia.

For the last three years, he has been a part-time technical advisor and facilitator to the Namibian government for the procurement and management of Joint Venture tourism concessions and the rationalisation of the oversight Concessions Unit within the Ministry of Environment and Tourism.

Willie is recognised as a leader in the field of developing viable biodiversity conservation and tourism policies, plans and implementation models that are environmentally-friendly, market-orientated, financially viable, community-based, private sector driven and empowering to stakeholders.  These models are now pursued by government agencies, non-government agencies and the private sector.

He has assisted various government and non-government agencies with policy formulation, institutional structuring and strengthening, project assessments, strategic planning, development planning, project implementation, conflict resolution and technical advice. 

He has a number of publications to his name, has presented on the topics of protected area establishment and expansion and nature-based and community-based tourism at a number of international conferences, and has served on the South African Association of Tourism Professionals (Founding Member, Director and Treasurer), the North West Development Tribunal (Member), the North West Environmental Forum (Founding Chair), the Heritage Route Tourism Association (Executive Member) and the Heritage Park Steering Committee (Project Manager, Transaction Officer and Honorary Member).