One of South Africa's oldest tourism-orientated publishing businesses, Art Publishers, is set for a revamp with a change of ownership and merger with natural history content producer Prime Origins.

The change sees Prime Origins managing director and natural history author Brett Hilton-Barber acquire a 75% stake in Art Publishers from photographer John Hone who is retiring. Hilton-Barber will merge his Prime Origins business with Art Publishers which is the country's leading supplier of tourism-orientated merchandise, ranging from books, T-shirts, caps, souvenirs, stationery and postcards. Prime Origins has a range of field guides, map books and checklists on the Kruger National Park and other tourism destinations.

Former Primedia Broadcasting and eTV finance director David Ralphs has been appointed CEO of the combined business, which will trade as Art Publishers.

"Art Publishers is a resilient company with a diverse range of products which will hopefully cushion the effects of the global recession" says Hilton-Barber, former political editor of Primedia's Radio 702 and one time general manager of Cape Talk Radio.

"Art Publishers has seen sustained growth over the 60 years it has been in existence and although this is a challenging time to be taking over a business, it is essentially a profitable enterprise that should benefit from the 2010 Soccer World Cup and other high profile sporting events like the Confederations Cup, the tour by the British Lions and the IPL series".

Hilton-Barber will be working closely with creative director Neil Austen who holds the balance of equity in Art Publishers. Together they will be spearheading a new product development initiative that will be of benefit to the 1 200 retail outlets that regularly buy the company's merchandise.

"Art Publishers' traditional strength has been in the high quality of its products and the relationships it's built up with retailers over many years" says Austen. "The incorporation of Prime Origins into the business will add depth to our image-based content offering and we intend aggressively developing that brand in publications associated with the country's major tourist destinations.

"There are also exciting projects underway with our major clients, particularly within the Tourvest and Edcon groups" says Austen. "Even though there is economic uncertainty, they are still gearing up for 2010 and beyond and are very receptive to new product ideas and merchandising solutions".

CEO David Ralphs, who recently returned to South Africa after eight years of managing a fashion-orientated business in Italy, says his challenge is to refine the structure and operational efficiency of the company. "We have put a new management team in place that's very results-focused. We've overhauled the sales incentive structure and put in new disciplines to assess product feasibility and how new projects are rolled out".

Art Publishers is one of the country's oldest companies. It was launched as a postcard business by three Norwegians in 1947. Although it remains the biggest supplier of postcards in the country, it has diversified into other product lines, notably books, branded apparel, souvenirs and stationery. Most of the 80 staff employed are at head office in Durban. In the past few years Art Publishers has significantly beefed up its sales and distribution resources at its Cape Town and Johannesburg branches.

Because of its increasing international profile, Cape Town is where most new business is coming from. That's where Hilton-Barber, Austen and Ralphs are based. The other members of the executive team – operations manager Rowland Visser and national sales manager Luke Dillon – are based in Durban.

"These are worrying and unpredictable times" says Hilton-Barber, "but with the opportunities around 2010, the roll out of new products and the strength and diversity of the existing product range, we are cautiously optimistic about our medium term prospects as well as the longer term opportunities for growth".