PHOTO: Briony Smith believes more people need to travel and her business is dedicated to helping them do that. (photo by David Cogswell)

Briony Smith is a slender, pretty young South African woman with long brown hair, but her eyes project a steely will. The way she walks and the way she holds herself communicate the determination that have moved her to the top of her profession a year and a half after starting Bee African Travel and Tours, a destination management company for the province of KwaZulu-Natal. She brings that will and determination to the service of a caring heart, and it is that care for her clients that has propelled her to success.

Smith has proved her mettle to such an extent that South African Tourism chose her from all the other tour operators in KwaZulu-Natal to take care of its group of journalists and show them around the province on its press trip following Indaba, SAT’s trade show in KwaZulu-Natal’s capital city of Durban.

Though she only started her business a year and a half ago, she is no newcomer to the travel business. Smith started 15 years ago at American Express as a retail travel agent taking corporate bookings. She then moved to Thompsons Travel, one of the biggest tour operators in South Africa. She worked in the domestic market taking bookings from local people and travel agents handling domestic travel within South Africa.

“In that department I was given the difficult clients because of the fact that I understand people,” said Smith. “I understand that everybody is different, that everybody has different requirements. And as long as you meet their needs they will be happy. So even if you make a mistake — everybody is human — you go with the solution, you don’t go with, ‘Oh, I’ve made a mistake. I’m sorry.’”

Those qualities made her the go-to person and the problem solver at Thompsons. “When people are under pressure they will prefer to deal with you,” she said, “because they know that when something is wrong you’ll deal with it effectively.”

From retail bookings, she moved into Thompson’s incentive department and began to get a feel for ground handling, managing groups of as many as 250 people. From there she moved into the inbound travel department, taking care of ground arrangements for travelers coming in from all over Africa and India.

Then she moved into the hotel side of the business, working in reservations for the Tropicana hotel in Durban.

“I was only there a few months,” said Smith, “and I was poached by Three Cities Group, a Durban-based hotel group. I handled central reservations for the group, all the hotels.”

Then, in her words, “I fell pregnant. I had my twin boys. I thought I was going to be a stay-at-home mom. They didn’t want to put me on half days so I left. I thought I was going to be a stay-at-home mom – I lasted four months.”

She called a contact with Get Africa Travel she knew previously and asked if they had an opening for her. “He said, ‘Yes, come right now.’ So I came now. That was 2006. I worked there for six years. I handled their groups. I was the only person who handled their groups. I had no operations, no one else.”

At that point her life took a sharp turn. She decided to try going into business for herself and bought into a franchise for a life skills training studio.

“That unfortunately didn’t work out,” she said. “It was my dad who said, ‘What are you doing? Why are you doing something you don’t have experience in?’

“That’s when I decided to take the leap of faith and start out on my own,” said Smith. “And I haven’t looked back since. When I started Bee African Travel and Tours, I was 60,000 grand in debt from my life skills training studio.”

What she lacked in financial wherewithal, she made up for with passion. Now she was truly doing what she knew and loved. The business took off.

“My initial bookings came from family and friends, which then turned into referrals,” she said. “I’m bad with social media and my website is not up and running yet.

“I think one of the reasons why I have grown as much as I have in the time that I have is because my business is people-focused and not money-focused. My business is not profit driven, it is people driven. No matter who you are and where you come from I will do my level best to help you.

“When you work with different companies, money, at the end of the day, is what they are worrying about. Whereas with me it’s more satisfaction. That’s the biggest payout for me."