Mandisa Magwaxaza is a guest on Kusa Cast podcast, where she is discussing the tourism industry and its recovery from the COVID pandemic. Mandisa grew up in a farming community in the Eastern Cape, and her first experience in the tourism industry was working at the Pumba Private Game Reserve. She then moved to Cape Town to pursue a career in tourism, starting at the Cape Grace Hotel. After working at Booking.com, Mandisa moved to Franschhoek and was then hired by Classic Portfolio, where she learned a lot.
These experiences ultimately led her to her current position as the founder of Molo Mhambi Relations, which focuses on helping businesses tell their stories, grow more relevant, and stay true to their African roots. This includes providing guidance on how to create experiences that are both culturally sensitive and conscious of biases. Mandisa believes that businesses should have values that are aspired to by everyone in the business, and that African travel should be accessible to Africans.
Mandisa is also a presenter on Algoa FM in South Africa on Saturdays from 10:00 p.m. to 02:00 a.m., and is leveraging indigenous knowledge to create experiences that can be revenue streams for the community, owned by the community. She is offering a free 30-minute consult to those in need of business advice.
For Mandisa, it all comes back to her roots. She is working to increase representation of travel on radio in South Africa and return to her community of Seven Fountains to ensure that tourism benefits the community. While technology and digitization can foster human connection and reach more people, it is tenacity that will help entrepreneurs make the most of their opportunities.
As Mandisa said in her podcast interview, “We underestimate what we do for a living and that’s why it keeps drawing us back because of the power and the joy that we feel and create.” For more information on Mandisa and her work, you can contact her on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook.
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