About Us

When a young learner from Park Town Boys’ High tragically drowned at an adventure camp in the Northwest Province, the lack of an umbrella body for the outdoor and adventure industry was suddenly revealed. This event, like so many other adventure accidents, was exacerbated in the media. Suddenly a chaotic outrage broke loose in the media and the whole adventure industry came under scrutiny. While the adventure industry was being torn to pieces in all media forms, we did not have a unified voice. Stakeholders were waiting for associations, organisations, government departments (education, sport, tourism, and social development) – anybody for that matter – to stand up and say something to defend this important industry. Sadly, nobody did. The sad reality is that these accidents, although rare, happen on a regular basis, but the public and media are not always aware of it. This one incident, which became public, led to an outrage under the general population. Three people with the same vision – Dewald Venter (national adventure, culture and nature guide, and adventure leadership lecturer), Francois Nel (from the outdoor retail industry), and Pieter Snyman (adventure experiential learning expert, and adventure lecturer) – initiated the first steps to get key role players together to draft a press release to defend the industry. After this, a WhatsApp group with three administrators was established and within one day the group already had 75 members, all of which share the same vision. A meeting was held on 21 January 2020 to draft a press release by 25 January. This would be sent to thousands of schools, newspapers, and radio and television stations. It would also be shared on the SAAIA WhatsApp group, to get the message out as far and wide as possible. During this meeting it became apparent that an umbrella body was necessary. It was decided that such a body should not only focus on individual outdoor and adventure operators, guides, or businesses, but rather on clusters such as associations, organisations, and other bodies. It should assist and guide the larger outdoor and adventure industry in establishing smaller bodies which form part of the umbrella body’s structure, development, and managerial functions. The first meeting with representatives from several diverse adventure bodies was held on 21 February 2020. There it was agreed that we should proceed with the consultation and liaison process to create an umbrella body. However, the role of the umbrella body is not to prescribe to the various clusters how to do their business, it is to work together with more role players in the outdoor and adventure industry, like: - governmental departments, including: the National Departments of Tourism, Education, Sports, Arts and Culture; Social Development and Welfare; Environmental Affairs; etc.; - provincial governments of all nine provinces as well as local governments, e.g.: City of Cape Town; Tshwane; Tlokwe; etc.; - national and international associations such as ISO/SABS, SATSA, ASATA, TBCSA, ATTA, etc. and its counterparts in other provinces and countries; - activity related associations e.g.: APA; WESSA; CCSA; ARA; SSI; NAUI; PADI; RAID; Sailing SA; 4X4 and Overlanding; etc.; and - to act as a catalyst in areas where there are no or little collaboration between individual service providers, e.g. mountain biking; adventure-based learning (ABL); etc. ​Negotiations were still in progress when the COVID-19 lockdown crippled our initiatives and actions to promote SAAIA, including the formal registration of SAAIA as a non-profit organisation.