// Tourism 2.0 Business Architect

Al Karaki - Consulting Partner
Contact: +27825548873 Rivonia, South Africa

Mr. Karaki's primary expertise lies in ICT and e-business, particularly in the tourism sector. From 2002 to 2005, Al was E-Business Manager for South African Tourism (the South African's national DMO) where he designed and implemented a world class e-business system which included: a new internet website with 14 mini sites, a campaign monitoring system, an extranet website for the tourism industry locally and internationally, an international call centre, a brand management system and a global project management system.

Before working for South African Tourism, he was advisor and project manager to the South African Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism. Earlier on in his career, Mr. Karaki (born and bred in Canada) was CEO of Pacific Sun Corporation, a project management company whose clients included the Canadian Government Office of Tourism, for which he secured several Japanese travel wholesalers and jointly promoted Western Canada facilities (ski resorts, golf and fishing) as tourist destinations.

During his career, Mr. Karaki has worked across different sectors of the economy, on a wide range of projects. He is currently involved in various activities including Manager Africa for Kyoto Planet (a global energy development and investment company); Vice President Convergence for the TLD Consortium (a company that will be making a submission to ICANN for a new Top Level Domain); Project Manager for the New Partnership for Africa's Development and Founder and CEO of Gr8start.net and Chameleon International (companies developing and marketing branded desktop communications and branding software).

His accomplishments in the tourism sector include the development and sponsorship of TourismShare (a collaboration system for DMOs) and as a project consultant the development of a website and tourism plan for General People's Committee for Tourism in Libya.

Mr. Karaki has also been a speaker at various Tourism/ICT conferences, including those of UNWTO, IFITT and UNCTAD. He has been engaged by UNWTO as an expert in the e-business/e-tourism sector and made a contribution to the new ETC/UNWTO e-marketing handbook for destinations, prepared by TEAM.

Key Areas of Expertise

Planning and implementation of e-Business; CRM and e-marketing; Website and e-business evaluation; e-business training; Website maintenance; Online acquisition of targeted audiences; Implementation and management of operational e-marketing campaigns; Domestic e-marketing strategy; International (inbound and outbound) e-marketing strategy; Managing IT procurement process; Project management.