Marilda Wiegand

Women in Tourism

Nominee's Province:
Limpopo

Project Name/Description:
Sunbird Tourism Development

More info:

“I’m stubborn, sensitive, and passionate and I get furious in the face of unfairness,” says Marilda Wiegand, director at Sunbird Tourism Development. Born in Polokwane, Limpopo, 45 years ago, and moved to Phalaborwa to start a family in 2007, Wiegand has been in the tourism and hospitality industry for almost three decades. The company offers coaching sessions, mentoring and consulting all within tourism. With regards to coaching, sessions are one-onone, either in person or via digital platforms such as Zoom, Skype, Microsoft Teams or WhatsApp calls. The sessions are motivational and discuss matters keeping the participant’s entrepreneurial brain awake at night, examine their current state of wellbeing, their goals and how to achieve those goals. She uses her practical tourism experience to mentor people that either intend or are already running tourism-related ventures. Wiegand also assists entrepreneurs with how to run tourism and hospitality ventures – such as bread and breakfasts – at operational consulting and practical level. Wiegand, also an independent facilitator, has been the chairperson of the Ba-Phalaborwa Tourism Association for years. She’s also the current Limpopo Chapter Chair for South African Tourism Services Association. At 19, Wiegand completed a game ranger course she started her career in tourism as junior manager and a junior assistant receptionist at a larger lodge before going solo and never looked back.