December 15, 2005
By Anish Abraham
THE Johannesburg Tourism Company has set about tackling its expanded mandate - also to promote the city as a leisure tourism destination - by bringing on board Hapiloe Sello, an experienced marketer.
As part of the team, Sello hopes to help build Johannesburg as a major international business and leisure tourism destination.
Giving her the edge in her new role is a new qualification: Sello recently completed her masters degree in international business and marketing management, in which she focused on the factors for positioning South Africa as a major business and tourism destination.
Johannesburg Tourism Company CEO Eddy Khosa with Hapiloe Sello
She received the degree from the Nimbas Graduate School of Management in Utrecht in the Netherlands.
"I have a passion for in-destination marketing and branding," she says. "I believe that South Africa's potential as both a business and leisure destination is still untapped and I'm giving my all in my new position to build 'Brand Johannesburg.'"
Sello says the key to attracting visitors to the city of gold is creating an emotional link. Visitors have to have a link to what Johannesburg stands for and what sort of statement it makes about the traveller who chooses to visit the city for business or leisure.
"That is the essence of destination marketing."
She is unperturbed about perceptions of Johannesburg as a crime-infested city with no coastline, geographical feature or other world-famous landmark.
"Dubai, essentially a desert, and Croatia, war-torn just two years ago, are now top tourism destinations. They show us just what can be done."
Under Sello, the company will launch a number of campaigns in the new year, aiming to capture the vibrancy and spirit of Johannesburg. "We need to get Jo'burgers excited about their city. After all, they're our best ambassadors."
Education
Apart from her masters degree, Sello has a bachelor of arts degree in political science and administration from the University of Lesotho and a post-graduate diploma in management from the Wits Business School. She also has completed a management development programme at the University of Stellenbosch Business School.
She spent seven years in the banking and mining sectors and a further five as an entrepreneur. As a partner in Co-ordinated Management Consulting between 1998 and 2003, Sello lead various projects in marketing and organisational development for clients like the Airports Company of South Africa, the Industrial Development Corporation, the SABC and the South African Local Government Association.
Free time is spent reading books and magazines, with the occasional trip to Europe, North America or Asia. "Now I'm setting my eyes on Africa, which I haven't explored as much as I would have liked to."
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