From airports to opportunity: The untapped power of travel hubs
These bustling centres serve as crucial platforms for job creation, innovation incubation, and cultural exchange, making them vital to the communities they serve. As travel infrastructure adapts to meet modern expectations of convenience and experience, the impact of these hubs extends far beyond travel facilitation.
At Relate Bracelets, for example, we’ve seen firsthand how places of transit - especially airports - can be more than just gateways to new destinations. They can be powerful agents of change. Through thoughtful partnerships and people-first initiatives, travel hubs have the potential to create dignity through work, spark entrepreneurship, and connect local communities with the world in meaningful ways.
Across South Africa, transit hubs like OR Tambo and Cape Town International Airports are transforming into more than just places to catch a flight. They’re evolving into vibrant economic ecosystems that breathe life into surrounding communities.
Every plane that lands or lifts off helps generate employment; from hospitality and logistics to security, retail, cleaning, and maintenance, creating ripple effects that sustain thousands of households. For many, especially in previously underserved communities, these opportunities can be life-changing.
Where movement sparks meaning
But the impact goes deeper than numbers or job titles. Transit hubs are melting pots of people, ideas, and cultures. With this constant convergence comes the chance to reimagine how we connect, not just through travel, but through shared experiences and values. When travel intersects with local enterprise and social purpose, something special happens: innovation takes root in very human ways.
We’ve had the privilege of seeing this meaningful connection come to life through Relate Bracelets’ ongoing partnership with Tourvest Destination Retail at Cape Town International Airport and OR Tambo International Airport.
This collaboration has created a unique platform to share our purpose-driven products with a global audience, offering travellers an opportunity to engage with authentic, handmade beadwork while directly supporting local artisans and the communities they belong to.
This partnership has enabled us to introduce our handmade beaded bracelets, lovingly crafted by gogos (grandmothers), youth, and other community members, to a global audience.
Each bracelet sold is more than just a beautiful keepsake; it carries the fingerprint of a real person, a story of resilience, and the shared dream of a better future.
One of those stories belongs to Mary Hoaeane from Khayelitsha. After the uncertainty brought on by Covid, Mary joined the non-profit Ikamva Labantu and began crafting bracelets for Relate.
For Mary, the work became a lifeline, not just financially, but emotionally. It gave her a renewed sense of purpose, a supportive community, and a daily reason to smile.
'We uplift one another,” she says, describing the bond between the women she works with every day. Her story is a moving reminder that meaningful work can offer more than income; it can offer dignity, joy, and a renewed sense of belonging.
What makes stories like Mary’s even more powerful is that they’re shared with travellers who often seek more than just souvenirs. Modern travellers crave authenticity. They want to engage with local culture, support meaningful causes, and return home with something that tells a deeper story. Our bracelets offer them that: a tangible piece of South Africa, woven with care, heritage, and hope.
Collaboration as the catalyst
Of course, none of this happens in a vacuum. The full potential of travel hubs can only be unlocked through collaboration. When businesses, government, non-profits, and communities come together with a shared purpose, airports and other transit spaces become more than infrastructure; they become engines for transformation.
Whether it’s by prioritising local hiring, supporting small businesses, offering skills training, or creating retail spaces that reflect the country’s diversity, there are endless ways to design transit spaces that uplift the people who live around them.
Successful partnerships recognise and leverage the complementary strengths of different stakeholders. Transit operators bring infrastructure and traveller flows, businesses provide commercial expertise and capital, government agencies contribute policy support and coordination, and community organisations offer local knowledge and workforce connections.
Together, these partners can create integrated development approaches that maximise community benefit.
Collaborations such as Relate Bracelets and Tourvest Destination Retail, for example, deliver multiple benefits simultaneously. Travellers gain access to authentic products and experiences that reflect local identity.
Community members secure meaningful employment and income generation opportunities. Businesses establish differentiated offerings that appeal to experience-seeking travellers. And transit hubs strengthen their position as valued community assets rather than isolated infrastructure.
Moving South Africa forward
We believe in putting people and purpose at the centre of everything we do. And we believe transit hubs have the power to do the same. These spaces can become places of inclusion, pride, and empowerment, not only facilitating movement but stimulating connection, opportunity, and growth.
Airports - and the communities within and around them - rely on purpose-driven retailers like Tourvest Destination Retail and Relate Bracelets to connect with transumers seeking more than just convenience.
Through initiatives that champion conscious consumption, they offer products with soul, authenticity, and impact, creating meaningful moments for both local and international travellers passing through their terminals. Because the best journeys don’t just take us places - they bring us closer to purpose.