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South Africa set to boost Business Tourism with success of Meetings Africa

With a significant increase in both buyers and suppliers, Business Tourism is set to grow in South Africa. This message was sent out to the global market at Meetings Africa – the annual showcase for South Africa’s Business Tourism recently. The 5th edition of Meetings Africa held at Johannesburg’s state-of-the-art Sandton Convention Centre witnessed a staggering 15 per cent growth in exhibitor numbers with visitor numbers rising by 12 per cent. “It is enormously encouraging to see this strong growth,” said Moeketsi Mosola, CEO, South African Tourism in his welcome address. “This sector of the industry has every reason to feel optimistic. We enjoy this year, for the first time, partnerships with bid parties that are worth millions of Rands invested in growing not only Meetings Africa, but also Business Tourism arrivals to our destination,” he added.

According to a BreakingTravelNews.com report, Mosola said he was encouraged by the number of high calibre global meetings and conferences South Africa had recently won the right to host. These included the 2009 International Near-infrared Spectroscopy Conference (with 500 delegates), the 2009 International Congress on Occupational Health (with 4000 delegates), and the 2013 International Geological Congress (with 6000 delegates). Daniel Levine, an international business tourism trends expert, told delegates at the opening ceremony that if destinations were to grow robustly, they needed to provide meaningful and braggable experiences for visitors.

“The world of travel is changing,” said Levine, further adding, “The global financial downturn has forced people to extract as much value as possible from their travels. People no longer travel to be hedonistic. They now seek core values from their travel spend: they look for responsibility in destinations; they want to see that the environment is cared for and they want to learn and grow through travel. South Africa is ideally positioned to maximise on this trend. Your people, your natural beauty and your cultural heritage are naturally given to working well with business models and strategies. South Africa needs to embrace social trends to continue its already impressive business tourism growth.”

Business Tourism currently comprises four per cent of South Africa’s total travel industry. However, South African Tourism is determined to grow its share of the Business Tourism market and it is the organisation’s ambition to propel South Africa to a top ten Business Tourism destination by 2014.

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