African Encounters has been fully acquired by MD, Ewan Opperman, with previous MD, Gary Smith, moving to focus completely on his ANT Management and Travel Monkey initiatives.

“The only change for African Encounters is that Ewan is now fully responsible for operations and general management,” explains Smith, who launched ANT Management, an “outsourced sales solution” for travel suppliers, in 2008.

“We recently developed an online platform called Travel Monkey, which operates as a unique social media-style marketing channel to educate the travel trade on our clients’ products and services while distributing their latest specials, product knowledge, unique selling points and trade discounts.”

According to Smith, ANT Management will be officially launching its Travel Monkey in 2012. “During our launch we will be running a number of competitions for travel agents that offer amazing travel-related prizes to our clients’ destinations.”

Meanwhile, African Encounters will launch its new range of Mauritian product early 2012.