South Africa’s (SA) business industry’s recovery is well underway with secured international and regional events to be held in the country in the near future. SA is on a mission to secure even more events highlighting the country’s countless possibilities.
SA business owners and government officials attended the IMEX expo in Frankfurt in Germany. Team SA, led by SA Tourism, shared a clear message of an attractive and capable country, ready to welcome and host big and smaller global events.
Armed with this mission and a mandate to drive economic recovery, SA Tourism is leading a group of exhibitors, comprising of various SA business owners and officials who will, over the next few days, showcase the country’s Meetings Incentives Conference and Exhibitions (MICE) products. IMEX brings together global event planners and no less than 1000 buyers with significant financial power.
“We attend trade shows such as IMEX with the bold and explicit goal of procuring more business events to be hosted in SA. By taking a variety of products to IMEX, we proved that our country has the infrastructure and unique beauty surpassing expectations. At IMEX, we also collaborated with the rest of the African continent in driving the message of an attractive and capable continent,” says Zinhle Nzama, Acting Chief Convention Bureau Officer, at the SA National Convention Bureau (SANCB), a business unit of SA Tourism.
“Our sector strategy, which focuses on attracting business events, is aligned with our national government’s key priority areas. A substantial part of our secured events for the next few years cover sectors such as Medical and Life Sciences, Agriculture, Creative industries and Manufacturing. We are committed to drive this initiative even harder so that we can continue to meaningfully contribute to the Tourism Sector Recovery Plan,” added Nzama, and stressed that by actively securing these business events at trade shows such as IMEX, the SA the business events sector contributes to the country’s economic development.
To ensure that SA Tourism advances the objectives of the Tourism Sector Recovery Plan (TSRP), the SA National Convention Bureau (SANCB), had been hard at work partnering with various cities and provinces to ensure that large events can be successfully hosted on home soil. Already, various established international and regional meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions are making a welcome return with about 87 conferences secured to take place between 2023 and 2027 and contributing more than R2 billion to the SA economy,” added Nzama.
These conferences are globally recognised trade and knowledge-sharing platforms where economic development is the common goal.
