Nationwide Jewellers is planning to take its members on a ‘diamond safari’ during its next Antwerp buying trip.
Nationwide Jewellers director Barry Jackson said the “diamond safari” will be an optional extension during its October buying trip – in previous trips the buying group has arranged optional extensions to cities such as Paris, Vienna, Dublin, Barcelona and Venice.
Members on the “safari” will fly to Johannesburg and then travel to the five-star Tau Game Lodge where they will spend 3 days “tracking the big five” and other exciting game. They will then travel to Gaborone (the capital of Botswana) where they will tour the Diamond Trading Company (De Beers) rough diamond sorting facility, the Tolkowsky H&A (Hearts and Arrows) cutting factory and the Jwaneng diamond mine (the world’s richest diamond mine).
“We are possibly the first retailers in the world to have the opportunity to tour the Diamond Trading Company’s diamond rough facility and then follow the process through to the cutting factory”, said Jackson.
“It would have been impossible to obtain access to these high security facilities in Botswana without the assistance of Tolkowsky – the number one diamond jewellery brand in the world.”
The Nationwide group has the exclusive rights to Tolkowsky diamond jewellery in Australia and New Zealand.
Jackson said the diamond safari is already proving popular with members and may therefore “need to be repeated in conjunction with future Antwerp trips”.