172 Letter from Lizette Olivier
Greetings future tourism researchers,
A life worth living
I grew up on a farm high up in the mountains of the Camdeboo, near Graaff-Reinet in South Africa. I was five years old when I went to boarding school during the week as there was no school near the farm. My parents had a “town house” in town and we spent some weekends in town during the term. Most weekends and holidays I spent on the farm with my parents, siblings and the extended community. We lived a life of sustenance solely from the farms produce.
My parents sold the farm in the mountains and moved to a farm in Oudtshoorn. My first job was during the school holidays when I was 16 where I worked as a guide and public relations officer on an ostrich farm called Highgate. This was my first experience of tourism and I fell in love with the magic of travel and the delight of tourists. Oudtshoorn is famous for the Cango Caves (where I often took my visiting relatives and friends).
I went on to study public relations at the Port Elizabeth Technikon. My first real job was in advertising where I worked five days a week. I also worked at a restaurant three nights a week as I had a dream to travel the world. Once I had saved enough money, I travelled with a friend to Israel, Turkey and Greece and then backpacked through Europe for 365 days (this was the longest return ticket that we could buy). Upon returning to South Africa, my heart yearned to travel again, I knew I needed to work hard to make that happen. I returned to Cape Town and worked at Ogilvy Mather advertising. Soon after, I fell in love with my dear husband (a farmer from Oudtshoorn). I thought my travel future was at risk as I moved to his farm not far out of Oudtshoorn. My husband was luckily a traveller himself and we went backpacking through Europe for three months on our honeymoon.
On returning back to reality, I was caught up in a small tourist town with little opportunity to be employed. I was enthused with the beauty of this majestic tourist town and quickly worked with the municipality to start up the first tourist information office together with the tourism operators. Due to my advertising background in the city, I leveraged my networks and soon I collaborated with all the tourist operators in the town. I also owned a travel agency and a small public relations company which primarily sold radio advertising. I hosted a talk show on KFM radio.
Then the greatest opportunity emerged, there was talk of starting a festival to attract more tourists into the town. Along with other business owners and tourism operators the town elders elected a number of people as Directors of the festival. I was chosen as the marketing director, together we formed the Klein Karoo National Arts Festival. I was the first employee of the festival and within a year, we launched the first Arts Festival in Oudtshoorn. I am proud to say, this festival was founded on grass root level and was set with a purpose to decolonise