06 May 2020

Launching Docu-series: The Mantis Story - 30 years in the Business of Tourism

14D4-zambezi-queen-2.jpg

Mantis, a global hospitality development, management and marketing company based in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, is launching a docu-series about its 30-year journey in the tourism business. The series will launch on Wednesday 6th May 2020.

The videos feature Founder and Executive Chairman of Mantis, Adrian Gardiner and his entrepreneurial family of tourism, conservation and adventure enthusiasts: Murray Gardiner – CEO of Gitledge Travel, and Paul Gardiner, CEO of Mantis.

The COVID19 pandemic has halted human movement at varying degrees across the globe, and tourism businesses are among those that have suffered the most. The ever-optimistic South African tourism industry has taken to social media to extend their services with virtual tour guides, cooking demonstrations and heartfelt messages from staff.

Mantis has used this time to curate never-seen-before content and interviews with some well-known faces that have been part of the Gardiner family’s journey. The story starts where it all began, and documents the work Adrian Gardiner and his team put into rehabilitating degraded farmland and rewilding it to create the very first private game reserve in the Eastern Cape.

The success of Shamwari Private Game Reserve was the birth of eco-tourism in the province; a sector of industry which now includes no less than 16 private game reserves that supply employment and conservation programmes in rural Eastern Cape. More tourism businesses followed including Mantis, Giltedge Travel, Worldwide Experience, Bear Grylls Academy, and the world-wide collection of hotels and lodges that are part of Mantis.

The videos are produced by Paul Gardiner, Morne Terblance of YellowFin Media, and Nelis Wolmarans Photography.

Follow the Mantis digital media platforms to see each episode as it is released.

Facebook: @MantisGroup | Twitter: @MantisGroup | YouTube: Mantis Collection

Instagram: mantiscollection | #mantismoments | LinkedIn: The Mantis Collection