Here are some names to remember for clients headed to South Africa: Singita Game Reserves has announced two managerial appointments at Singita Kruger National Park. Laurez de Wet has taken up the reins as lodge manager at Singita Lebombo Lodge and Kevin Pongola was appointed lodge manager at Singita Sweni Lodge.
Laurez de Wet was born in Durban in KwaZulu-Natal, earned her diploma in Hotel Management at the Durban University of Technology, and completed her in-service training at Rattray's at Mala Mala in the Sabi Sand Reserve. Her past experiences include the Phinda Forest Lodge (KwaZulu-Natal); Royal Malewane in the Thornybush Nature Reserve where she served as Front of House Manager; and most recently the Thanda Private Game Reserve on the Elephant Coast where she was Lodge Manager.
Pongola first joined the Front of House team at Singita Kruger National Park in 2008. His passion and unfaltering work ethic soon caught the eye of the Singita Management team, who promoted him to the position of Lodge Manager. Born in Plettenberg Bay and raised in Cape Town, Pongola has worked at Le Quartier Français in Franschhoek while completing a three-year course in Hotel Management at the International Hotel and Motel Association in Cape Town. He has worked at the Wheatleigh Hotel outside Boston in the United States, and then at Heston Blumenthal's restaurant The Fat Duck in Bray (United Kingdom) before returning to home soil.