Far East interested in SA as meetings destinationCalvyn Gilfellan, CEO of Cape Town Routes Unlimited (CTRU), fresh back from his team's trip to this year's Asia-Pacific Incentive and Meetings Expo (AIME) in Melbourne, observed a number of trends at the meeting and they appear to bode well for South Africa as a prime destination for conventions and similar events. Gilfellan says the following trends were evident at AIME, 3-4 March 2010:
This year's AIME was attended by 6000 delegates and was held at the Melbourne Convention Centre. Melbourne, Cape Town, San Juan, Copenhagen, Dubai, Vancouver, Edinburgh and Singapore are the only members of the esteemed Best Cities Global Alliance, a networking and quality assurance institution for Convention Bureaus. Hot leads for 2010The team completed no less than 40 business meetings at the event with some of the region's top hosted buyers in order to acquire business leads."It is now up to all of us to ensure that we not only capitalise on this sentiment in the short term, but deliver an experience that will turn business tourists into leisure ones and vice versa. In that way we will build a truly sustainable tourism industry," says Gilfellan after this hectic but very satisfying international marketing drive. For more information on the Cape Town and Western Cape business tourism experience, go to www.tourismcapetown.co.za or email . |