Every year on September 24, South Africa celebrates Heritage Day, also known as National Braai Day, where the country’s diversity is honored over a shared meal. However, heritage in South Africa extends beyond a single public holiday. Four properties across the country are working to protect heritage, culture, wildlife, and community every day of the year.
These properties, located in different parts of South Africa, have a common thread – they are preserving heritage as a living system, where skills are passed on, cultures are represented, and land and species are kept intact because the people closest to them have a stake in their survival.
Preserving a Pathway
The Drostdy Hotel, a five-star Cape Dutch-style hotel in Robert Sobukwe, is owned by the South African College for Tourism (SACT) and is doing more than preserving a national monument. It is preserving a pathway for unemployed young individuals from rural South Africa to pursue careers in hospitality.
Students at SACT are trained on the floor of a working five-star hotel, handling real guests, bookings, and complaints. Tebello Polisane-Casper, Executive Director of Drostdy Hotel and SACT, emphasizes the importance of women in leadership positions as role models and mentors, inspiring the next generation to realize their potential.
Anra Smith, who started as an intern reservationist and is now the hotel’s Wine Shop and Events Manager, is an example of the success of this model. Seventy years after the 1956 women’s march, Graaff-Reinet offers a working example of that legacy inside an industry built on service – a heritage site turned into a pipeline for the women it once would have excluded from its front-of-house.
Heritage in the Making
At Shiviko Kruger, a property on the banks of the Sabie River, heritage is not something children observe – it is something they create and take home. Each of the property’s four exclusive-use villas is built around a distinct African culture, told through its architecture, craft, and objects.
Guides run junior fire-making sessions, storytelling, and traditional bead work, allowing children to learn and create their own heritage. A newly launched children-led filmmaking experience lets children capture their stay in their own words, edited into a keepsake film by the property’s videographer.
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Anica Jones, General Manager at Shiviko Kruger, notes that multi-generational travel is about creating a space where grandparents, parents, and children can move at their own rhythm and create memories on their own terms.
Two Isibindi Africa Lodges properties in KwaZulu-Natal, Rhino Ridge Safari Lodge and Thonga Beach Lodge, show that protecting South Africa’s heritage extends to the land, wildlife, and marine life that heritage is built on, and that this protection only works in partnership with the communities who live alongside it.
Rhino Ridge Safari Lodge, located inside Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park, helps protect the southern white rhino and its habitat, with guest stays directly funding ranger patrols and conservation efforts. Many of the lodge’s staff are drawn from the neighboring Mpembeni community, connecting conservation, community, and tourism as one system.
Thonga Beach Lodge, located on the Mabibi coastline, protects a different kind of heritage – loggerhead and leatherback turtles that return to the same beaches to nest each year, and the coral rockpools and reefs of one of the country’s last untouched shorelines. Eighty-eight percent of the local community is employed at the lodge, and marine educator Saneliso “Sunny” Mathenjwa leads youth education programs in marine biology and conservation ethics.
A Living System
Guest stays at these properties directly fund ranger patrols. They also pay for smart-fencing technology and the Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife K9 Unit’s tracking dogs. Inside Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park, the reserve is the birthplace of Operation Rhino. The lodge helps protect the area where every southern white rhino alive today traces its lineage. The park has recorded a landmark reduction in rhino poaching this year.
Conservation as Living Heritage
Isibindi Africa Lodges operate within Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park and the iSimangaliso Wetland Park. These locations serve as the foundation for heritage, requiring protection of the land, wildlife, and marine life. Success depends on working alongside the communities that live on the borders of these parks.