The International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) has awarded Cape Town as the host venue for their annual conference in 2004.

ICCA is the leading global organisation in the conference and meetings industry. Cape Town was shortlisted with Montevideo, Uruguay as a possible destination for 2004.

The ICCA conference is scheduled to take place in October 2004 and will most probably attract 600 or more delegates from all over the world.

These delegates represent the broad spectrum of the international meetings industry including travel agents, airlines, professional conference organisers, convention bureaus, hotels and convention centres.

All delegates are considered to be opinion leaders and will be able to influence the choice of future destination for many international conferences. Traditionally ICCA attracts a lot of media attention. It is expected that Southern Africa will attract a lot of media attention in the coming years in the trade press for the meeting industry.

Delegates of the ICCA conference will spread the word about South Africa as an interesting meetings destination. The 2004 conference will be hosted in the new Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC).

Delegates attending the 2002 conference this week in Copenhagen were extremely supportive of travelling to Southern Africa in 2004. They have already indicated a great interest in pre- and post-conference tours visiting all parts of the country.

ICCA's decision to come to Cape Town was the result of an extensive bidding procedure where all South African ICCA members were actively involved. These included South African Tourism, the major convention centres, convention bureaus, hotels and South African Airways.

The importance of international conventions for South Africa is normally calculated in region of the R2000 per delegate spend per day, but in this particular case it reaches far beyond this figure.

As a result of the ICCA conference many more international conventions will come to South Africa, while the tourism industry in general will certainly benefit from the large component of the travel industry represented by the ICCA delegates.

The South African ICCA members regard the decision of ICCA as recognition of South Africa as a respected international meeting destination.