November is Awards month as the travel and hospitality industry acknowledge excellence across a broad spectrum of service categories. This edition features South Africa's 2016 Llilzela Tourism Awards, the World Luxury Hotel Awards, the car hire sectors MOTY Awards, and the Sports & Events Tourism Award winners. We also review St. Lucia in the Caribbean, Chilly Powder in the French Alps, and Child Friendly Safaris at Mark's Camp in South Africa.

As our front cover demonstrates, a Big Five safari is all about the sightings and experiences and sharing the thrill of these experiences with friends and family on social media is what travellers do. But internet connectivity at game reserves can be sporadic, if available at all. So how important is WiFi access? Is it a factor when travellers make their destination decisions? Do properties with great connectivity benefit more than those with poor or no connectivity? Our feature on page 08 finds out.

In the edition, Erik Wolf of the World Food Travel Association defines what food tourism is all about and explains how to get your slice of the pie. We also look at the state of tourism safety communications in South Africa and investigate the role of tour operators against the increase in booking aggregator business.

Sustainable Tourism makes business sense as our eco-friendly hotels, lodges, attractions, and tour operators featured in this, and in past editions, can testify to. Just read how Lalibela has impacted on the Eastern Cape's economy to see what I mean. It's clear from this month's editorial content that African governments need to develop effective methods of collecting tourism data to accurately assess the sector's contribution to sustainable tourism development as the latest UN report on Economic Development in Africa clearly shows. From a hotel data perspective, HVS has analyzed 21 countries...