Meerkats, mountains and mussels, fossil footprints and fly-fishing, sandstone and shipwrecks…
These are some of the intriguing subjects I have learned about since July 2010, when Flow won a tender to write and edit content for South African Tourism (SAT), on the country’s primary destination marketing site, www.southafrica.net.
Almost every day, I read about a new and intriguing South African place or fact that makes my feet itch and my camera shutter finger twitch in anticipation. I’ve learnt that the Cape vulture, aka the griffon, is the heaviest raptor that flies in South Africa’s skies, that there are more than 2 000 shipwrecks off our coast, that there is a vast collection of old steam trains at a farm in the Free State and that the Verneukpan in the Northern Cape seemed a perfect place to Malcolm Campbell to set a land speed record in 1929 – until he had multiple tyres shredded by the sharp rocks that lay strewn across the Star Trek-like landscape.
I have been one of the lucky Flowstars working on the SAT account. My job is to sub-edit copy, and what a wonderful job it is, especially as I work with some of the top travel writers in the country, including award-winning, husband-and-wife team Chris Marais and Julie du Toit, who are based in the Eastern Cape, but who travel the country extensively.
My colleagues agree with me that work doesn’t get much better than this. Says Christine Marot, who is based in Durban, and writes about KwaZulu-Natal for SAT, “Apart from immense job satisfaction gained from providing the most informative, up to date and attractive content for our client, there’s a greater sense of being a part of showcasing all that our magnificent country has to offer, to the world.”
Roy Barford, who manages Flow’s Cape Town office and writes about adventure, sport, and the Western Cape, says, “Working with SAT to promote sport and adventure in our beautiful county is a massive honour. I’ve been fortunate to experience some awesome adventures around South Africa and sharing these stories with such a large international audience is an absolute pleasure.
“I’ve always been mad about sport, so being chosen as the sport content custodian for South Africa’s official destination marketing organisation gave me plenty to smile about,” adds Roy. “Through my work with SAT I’ve had the opportunity to also work with some of the country’s top travel writers and photographers, such as Kate Turkington and Chris Marais. The opportunity to learn from such writers is priceless.”
Flow associate and veteran travel writer, Kate Turkington, writes about Mpumalanga and Gauteng for SAT. She says of her experience, “It’s exciting, exhilarating and I’m always in awe of just how much South Africa has to offer.”
For Kate, highlights in the past year include articles on walking with Bushmen, the De Hoop Collection in the Western Cape, the Garden Route and various ghost tours throughout South Africa.
Ingrid Sinclair recently joined the Flow team working on the SAT account to write about the Western Cape. “Writing for SAT, even though it’s early days, has been hugely rewarding,” says Ingrid. “This is a rare chance to showcase our country to an international audience, and I’m really proud to be an ambassador for South Africa in this way! I have also found the SAT content community – even though I haven’t met most of them – cohesive, accountable and passionate. The devil and delight are in the details; it’s a challenge to get everything spot on, but once that challenge is met,
I feel a real sense of accomplishment.”
Says Kay Robertson, SAT’s content editor, of her experience with Flow, “Thank you to Flow too for being so professional in dealing with SAT work. Your staff is a feather in your cap and it’s always a pleasure dealing with them.”
Adds SAT’s Ems Moipone Tsotetsi, with whom we also work closely, “Working with Flow Communications has been an absolute pleasure. They always make time to accommodate last-minute projects and they always deliver high-quality work in everything they do.”
Apart from writing for www.southafrica.net, Roy and Kate also run blogs for SAT. You can access them at www.beckon.co.za and www.betheredothat.co.za.