A FIVE-STAR meetings, conferences and incentive travel destination does not only require five-star hotels, world-class infrastructure, impeccable service and mind-boggling incentive options.
It also calls for five-star service from the convention bureau - service of the highest quality, at all times.
“A destination’s meetings, incentives and conferences offering must be a holistic one,” stresses Calvyn Gilfellan, CEO of Cape Town Routes Unlimited (CTRU), the tourism destination marketing organisation for Cape Town and the Western Cape in South Africa.
“As we work together with our city and province’s venues, hospitality sector, destination management companies and professional conference organisers, we recognise our role in the following: facilitating new business for the destination through the activities of the Cape Town and Western Cape Convention Bureau; equipping our industry; creating more joint marketing platforms for our destination’s products; and leading the way in ensuring service excellence – not only in our destination, but also in South Africa and Africa.”
BestCities Global Alliance
The Cape Town and Western Cape Convention Bureau, CTRU’s strategic business unit, is Africa’s representative in the BestCities Global Alliance - an alliance that strives to deliver the best professional practices to the world’s conference, conventions and meetings industry. Last year, the Cape Town and Western Cape Convention Bureau was one of eight bureaus, on five continents, to be successfully assessed by Lloyds’ Register Quality Assurance of its compliance with the BestCities Global Alliance service standards.
It was subsequently officially certified. The other BestCities partners are Copenhagen, Dubai, Edinburgh, Melbourne, San Juan, Singapore and Vancouver. BestCities membership guarantees quality service levels for buyers looking to bring their conferences or meetings to Cape Town and it has proved most useful in achieving significant success in attracting new conference business to the destination.
Gilfellan goes on to say: “The eight BestCities convention bureaus pride themselves on close cooperation that extends across organisations, cultures and countries and also ensures first option on conference and meeting’s referrals from member cities. We are Africa’s accredited and leading convention bureau and hope to spread the benefits it brings to the continent”.
Number One convention destination in Africa
Cape Town and the Western Cape is the Number One convention destination in Africa, currently enjoying the 37th position on the International Congress and Convention Association’s (ICCA) Global Ranking Report. The destination is looking forward to hosting at least 19 major international conferences and congresses this year, bringing an expected 25 950 delegates and an estimated R301 million to the destination.
For 2010 and 2011, Cape Town and the Western Cape Convention Bureau, together with our partners, has already secured 21 international conferences and congresses, with an expected 31 900 delegates and an estimated economic impact of R324.8 million. Cape Town and the Western Cape will also be hosting some of the world’s top association buyers when it receives the BestCities sales mission in June this year.
The Convention Bureau spearheaded the bidding process for the International Conference of the Society of Incentive Travel Executives (SITE) which takes place in December 2010. Hosting this conference is critical in positioning our destination as one of the foremost incentive travel destinations in the World. The Incentive Travel segment is the most lucrative of all tourism segments with spend per incentive traveller often in excess of R5 000 per day as compared to an average R800 – R1 000 for the average international leisure tourist.
Meetings Africa 2009
Gilfellan and a team from the Cape Town and Western Cape Convention Bureau have just returned from Africa’s top business tourism show: Meetings Africa in Johannesburg, South Africa (25 – 27 February 2009) where they promoted the destination as a premier business tourism destination and launched its brand new Meeting Planners Guide.
Meetings Africa, drawing approximately 3 000 visitors, focuses specifically on showcasing events, incentives, conferences and business travel products of the African continent. According to South African Tourism, 211 businesses were expected to showcase their services to the global travel trade this year - 15% more than last year. Of those exhibitors, 50 were at Meetings Africa for the first time.
The Cape Town and Western Cape Convention Bureau’s activities translated into strong leads as well as confirmed business for the destination including:
- 4 incentive groups with 910 participants
- 4 international and national association conference bids
- 1 association meeting with 150 delegates
- International media exposure, including 2 confirmed feature films on the destination
These have the potential to generate an estimated income of R62.6million for Cape Town and the Western Cape and attract at least 5 370 tourists to the destination.
In order to offer Meetings Africa delegates a complete destination experience, the Cape Town and Western Cape Convention Bureau provided a very successful platform for destination partners such as tour operators, venues, professional conference planners and destination management companies.
Says Sadiq van Schalkwyk, operations manager of Freedom & Falcon Tours, one of the tourism entrepreneurs on the stand and first-time exhibitor at Meetings Africa: “We managed to make superb contacts and land 14 solid leads. People here know what they want and are keen to link up with companies in Cape Town.”
Wendy Mehl, Events Manager of Exel, agrees: “We walk away with at least five good possibilities for future business – now we just need to do proper follow-up work.” Other tourism entrepreneurs on the Cape Town and Western Cape stand included A&K Tours, Pakama Sport Tourism and Fairfield.
As part of its Meetings Africa programme, the Cape Town and Western Cape Convention Bureau teamed up with Arabella Starwood Hotel & Resorts to present the destination’s offerings to approximately 80 members of the business tourism industry at a cocktail function on the first day of the show.
On Thursday, 26 February 2009, the Bureau, together with the Cape Town International Convention Centre, hosted “Breakfast with Cape Town” for 56 hosted buyers from Australasia, UK, Europe and the USA.
In order for potential tourism product buyers to get a real taste of Cape Town and the Western Cape, the Convention Bureau, in partnership with SA Tourism, hosted 35 representatives from the UK, Europe, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Canada and the USA for pre and post Meetings Africa tours of the destination.
For more information, visit Cape Town and Western Cape Convention Bureau
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