Some 55 properties have now joined Southern Sun’s Adopt-a-Guesthouse corporate social responsibility project, which has now been renamed Book-a-Guesthouse. The project, launched in 2005, is aimed at training and mentoring tourism entrepreneurs to create sustainable hospitality businesses. Setting their sights now on Western Cape expansion, the Book-a-Guesthouse team, led by Dr Billy Gallagher, has set an ambitious national target of 100 guesthouses, with properties already signed up in Gauteng, Limpopo and KwaZulu Natal. Member guesthouses need to be in an area where there is an existing Southern Sun property as the hotels are used as a base for training. “Although Southern Sun carries 90 per cent of the financial costs of the programme, it has expanded to encompass other partners and is now an industry initiative,” explains Gallagher. Partners include Carlson Wagonlit Travel, Fedhasa, the South African Chefs Association, Tourism Enterprise Partnership and South African tourism authorities. “We partner with local tourism authorities to identify potential candidates in an area. They need to be graded, have potential for growth and the right vision,” explains Rebone Sesoko, the programme’s project manager. A website (www.bookaguesthouse.co.za) has been developed allowing interested parties to send booking enquiries directly to the property, which will offer a minimum of four and maximum of 12 rooms generally, explains Sesoko. Gallagher says one of the lessons learned since 2005 is that taking on a paternal role in this kind of venture will not make the programme’s participants “good business people”. “It takes about three years to get participants established and once this happens they become sustainable through our efforts in marketing, sales and remedial training. They require a different level of support than when they started out.” The Book-a-Guesthouse team is now looking at expanding their trade partners, including piggybacking off SA Tourism’s Sho’t Left campaign. “About 80 per cent of the participants’ guests are international at this stage but we hope to drive the domestic tourism side,” concludes Sesoko.