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Elmari was born in Bethal in Mpumalanga South Africa. She completed
a B. Comm. degree in Travel & Tourism Management at the University
of Pretoria before joining a small tour operator where she worked
as a Tour Consultant in the inbound market.
She later joined safari tour operator Afro Ventures in 1998 as a Tour Consultant, but quickly moved up the ranks. It wasn’t long before Elmari was promoted to Assistant Reservations Manager for the Afro Ventures Southern Africa team. Following the merger of Afro Ventures with CC Africa, she was once again promoted, to Reservations Manager (Afro Ventures Tours). In the years that followed, she became a mother (twice!) to a daughter and later, a son, which subsequently led to her decision to leave CC Africa shortly after being promoted to General Manager Afro Ventures Tours. It was at this time she joined her ex-colleagues at Journey Beyond in August |
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2002 on a part time basis assisting Product Director, Sally Moon
on all issues pertaining to the Product side the business. Her
current responsibilities include the updating and negotiating
of rates from suppliers as well as the monumental task of the
maintenance of the product side of the reservations system.
As a child Elmari visited the Kruger National Park on many occasions and Mauritius once. She was fortunate enough to visit Zimbabwe and Botswana for the first time on an educational trip, visiting Victoria Falls, Hwange National Park, Mana Pools National Park and Chobe National Park. She says of this trip, “Mana Pools is the most unique and beautiful place I have ever been to and Zimbabwe proved to be so remarkably beautiful that I chose to revisit many of the areas mentioned above on my honeymoon a year or so later, as well as Kariba and Matusadona
National Park, one of the many highlights of the trip”. |
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Another
highlight of her travels was visiting the world famous, Sossusvlei
area of Namibia – renowned for having the highest sand dunes
in the world, a spectacularly beautiful desert area with amazing
contrasts of colours – set against purple mountains in the
distance, pink, orange, blue and green sunsets that seem to set
the dunes on fire and make the grasses glow like gold in the fading
light.
Elmari has since visited various lodges in the Sabi Sands Game Reserve (adjacent to the Kruger National Park) as well as other Game Reserves within South Africa such as Madikwe, Phinda and the Pilanesberg National Park. She has traveled quite extensively through South Africa visiting Cape Town, the Wine Route, Drakensberg and the small kingdom of Swaziland. Family holidays are spent in a small seaside town by the name of Sedgefield along the scenic Garden Route. |
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