Marthinus Strydom
Co-founder and Chairman, Exotic Vacations
Marthinus and his wife, Heidi, co-founded Exotic Vacations in April 2005 as South Africa's first online travel agency, more than a year before Travelstart opened here. He is its chairman. Over the past 21 years the company has planned island holidays for South Africans, with Mauritius at its heart, as an authorised Beachcomber partner.
Before Exotic Vacations he built some of South Africa's first e-commerce businesses. He was Marketing Director and CIO of the McCarthy Group, and built Eliance, the e-commerce company he went on to own and sold in 2013. ITWeb named him one of South Africa's top ten IT personalities in 2012.
He is a writer and cook as well. His book Taste The World came out of years of travelling through Spain, Portugal, France, Italy and Greece to study their food. He lived in Spain for several years, and has travelled from the Amazon to Central Africa.
At Exotic Vacations he signs off our resort guides and destination advice. Our consultants in the Garden Route and Bloemfontein do the planning.