The industry was shocked and saddened to hear of the sudden, untimely, accidental death of Gouwa Sheldon of GS Travel Services, Gouwa’s own independent agency, yesterday, Sunday September 26.
Gouwa started working in the travel industry in 1987 and had a 34-year career in travel. She started her career at ITC Travel as a receptionist and, as she said in her LinkedIn profile, she taught herself to make reservations. She worked for various agencies until 2004, when she started her own business, GS Travel Services. She found she had a great love for arranging entertainment travel and group travel.
Clive Newman of Clive Newman Events, said he met Gouwa just after the turn of the century when she worked for Udomo Travel. “She did all our flights for the Cape Town International Jazz Festival (then known as the North Sea Jazz Festival Cape Town). We immediately developed a rapport as she was always willing to attempt the sometimes ridiculous flight requests from some international artists and was always willing to accommodate them. It did not take long before she was dealing directly with artists and they all loved her. She counted among her friends the likes of George Benson, the Manhattans, Freddy Cole, Third World and others,” said Newman.
Aside from her family and her travel business, Gouwa was passionate about baseball.
It is clear from the prolific Facebook posts that Gouwa was well loved and enormously respected by the travel community, especially in Cape Town.
Gouwa leaves behind her husband, Sedick, sons Ikraam and Ishma-eel, and daughter, Kauthar.
