Thabo The Tourist: The heART of African tourism

SATSA Member: Toura Travel Therapy - GA0001

Product: Hosted Art Hopping Tours

Website: www.touratraveltherapy.com

Thabo Modise started his career in tourism on Vilakazi Street in 2010, with an informal art stand next to the road. “I was selling my own t-shirts and other branded art products under a gazebo tent,” he explains. Thabo used this experience to study the art tourism market and saw an opportunity to grow the street-side shop into a more formal shop business – a shopping and tourism destination of choice. 

Now, he is the owner of Toura Travel Therapy (more popularly known as Thabo The Tourist), a tour operating service that
specialises in art tourism services.

Lessons from Vilakazi Street

The other shops around Thabo’s stand were mostly big restaurants, which were in direct competition for the company,” he explains.

“My biggest challenge was getting guests to notice us between these impressive offerings – how do I attract artists and tourists and encourage them to purchase our products?” 

Thabo realised he needed to make more impactful “noise” about it. “I commissioned an artist to paint a mural (the Shova mural) on Vilakazi Street that became like a landmark photo-tourism destination,” he shares. “The mural became famous for fashion, television, and commercial photoshoots.” 

Once Thabo got more traction from his marketing efforts, he launched the well-known and attended Vilakazi Street Night Market to complement his business and give local artists the market access they needed to grow their brands. “Every last Thursday of the month, we gathered to support local creatives who want to exhibit their art.” 

Viewing art is a wellness activity

“There were a lot of tourists coming to Vilakazi Street, and I remember I used to wonder where they were coming from, which sparked my curiosity,” Thabo shares. 

In 2017, South African Tourism launched its Hidden Gems programme, which was led by former CEO Sisa Ntshona, in partnership with SATSA. They selected 10 lesser-travelled offerings, including Thabo’s art market. “This was my introduction to the tourism industry,” he said. “We went through a course where they taught us how to meet operators, package tours, market our businesses, and much more.” 

The course helped position the growing business for success, especially as it operated in one of the most competitive tourism destinations in the Gauteng province. “It enabled me to think more innovatively about the relationship between art and tourism.”

So, in 2019, Thabo closed his Vilakazi Street art market and started conceptualising innovative ways to link art and tourism in real-time. He realised that most people are still too overawed by galleries and don’t want to go alone. “If you’re travelling solo and you want to share your perspective, but you look around the gallery and the audience looks very serious and intellectual, you’d be scared too,” he shares. “Because of this, they’re losing out on what I call ‘the healing power of art’.”

At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic was making its way across the world, and people were struggling with their mental health. “There was a big need for wellness activities, and I knew instinctively that viewing art within gallery environments would be the things that did it – it’s very therapeutic,” Thabo says. “Sometimes, you just need to sit down and forget about your day-to-day life.”

Thabo leveraged his time spent on Vilakazi Street and the knowledge he gained from the tourism course to create a more inclusive art offering. “I decided, why not package it as a wellness tour, where we could accompany them and design itineraries to make it less intimidating. After all, most activities are more fun, memorable and informative if you do it with other people and gallery visits are no exception,” he explains. 

Coincidentally, African art and artists were gaining a lot of global recognition at the time – and this has only been increasing in recent years. This led Toura to not just position tourism as a vehicle to expose local talent but also to export African artists.  “The tour would also allow us to introduce people to new art spaces that they wouldn’t have otherwise known about or share news and updates about new artists or exhibits, or trends within the art industry,” Thabo adds. 

Integrating art as a tourism offering

With all of this research, Thabo founded Toura Travel Therapy and started hosting art gallery hopping tours across Johannesburg, where visit multiple galleries in one day – including Everard Read, Circa, BKHZ, Origin Art, David Krut, Gallery2, Blue House, Kim Sacks gallery, the famous Goodman Gallery, and more! “We even take people into some of the artists’ studios, where they can see first-hand the work that goes into the exhibits they see in the galleries,” he says. 

Not to mention the graffitied streets of Newtown, Braamfontein and Maboneng where tourists can get up close with their cameras. “We teach people how to comprehend art, appreciate it, and connect with the story,” Thabo explains, simply.

“We show them how to see the details they would have missed the first time, or unpack the storytelling based on the artist and country’s background. We explain the mediums used too, because South African contemporary artists are not scared to play around with out-of-the-ordinary approaches.”

One of Thabo’s guests from America said that, when she saw the tour online, she knew it wasn’t something she would find anywhere in the United States (US). “She booked the tour because she really loves visiting galleries,” Thabo recalls. “After the tour, she was blown away by the in-depth knowledge and the art spaces she wouldn’t have known existed before.” 

He emphasises that every tour is unique and personalised based on the client’s interest and the host of the tour. “Some are already art aficionados, others are still new to the scene, so it differs from one person to the next.”

Never doing it alone  

Thabo lives by the Toura Travel Therapy model of not doing anything alone. “We partner with tour operators, travel agencies and hotels to run our art tours and bring new tourists to the galleries,” he says. 

The company’s membership with SATSA also gives Thabo access to the tourism industry (including new tour operators and agencies) and the tools it needs to tap into its potential. 

With this help, the Toura Travel Therapy team has gone from just Thabo to a team of four. “That’s a big achievement in such a short period of time, and it’s because we were able to differentiate ourselves from other tourism offerings. We aim to complement, not compete,” he concludes. 

Through Toura, Thabo the Tourist has redefined the art tourism experience, making galleries and creative spaces more inclusive and engaging for all. By integrating storytelling, wellness, and cultural exploration, he has built a sustainable business that also creates opportunities for local artists and tour operators. As the global appreciation for African art continues to grow, his innovative approach ensures that more people can connect with the healing power of art. 

Trade bookings: tours@touratraveltherapy.com or thabothetourist@touratraveltherapy.com

Website: www.touratraveltherapy.com