ASATA has announced that CEO Otto de Vries will step down at the end of 2027, after 14 years at the helm of the association.
The announcement comes as ASATA enters its 70th year and its new identity as the Association of Southern African Travel Advisors. De Vries said it felt like the right time for new leadership to take the association into its next chapter.
ASATA Chair Sailesh Parbhu, Managing Director of XL Nexus Travel, said the timing reflected deliberate planning rather than disruption.
“Otto has been an extraordinary custodian of this industry's voice for 14 years. He has come to us with a considered decision, a year and a half ahead of his departure: that ASATA's next chapter should be led by someone else, with him ensuring the transition is seamless.”
Parbhu said: “What's easy to underestimate in a CEO transition is the scale of what Otto has done, much of it advocacy work that happens quietly, in the background. Fourteen years of engaging on our behalf with National Treasury and IATA, through a pandemic, through SAA's business rescue, and through every payment and procurement rule that could have gone against us instead of for us. That behind-the-scenes work is the standard the next CEO inherits.”
De Vries added: “The direction ASATA has taken over these 14 years was necessitated by where the industry found itself, through a pandemic and no small amount of change. I've given the Board a year and a half's notice because I want members, partners and government stakeholders to have complete confidence in the continuity of ASATA's work, and I've made myself available to assist with that work in whatever way the Board finds useful going forward.”
