OVERVIEWBy the end of day two, Meetings Africa 2011 had already improved on last year’s show in a number of key areas.

Most importantly, more business than ever before is being done at Meetings Africa, thanks to the

sophisticated matchmaking programme implemented by outsmart Marketing.

“A record 7 387 meeting requests were sent, with 6176 (83.61%) already ac-tioned half-way through day two,” says Nomasonto Ndlovu, south African tour-ism’s global manager: Business tourism. “over 3 222 meetings had been con-firmed by that stage.”

scan on show’s Jacqui Reynolds says, “our goal was to have 60% of the meet-ing requests actioned. We’re now up to 83%, which is super.”

Meetings Africa is also generating more press coverage than last year, with registered local media up an impressive 66% by the end of day one.

south African tourism is hosting a num-ber of African trade partners at the show, which has also led to increased edito-rial coverage across the continent. Even before the African press conference on tuesday, Meetings Africa had been fea-tured in Nigerian Tribune, Compass, and Daily Independent.

At the end of day one, local visitors, excluding media, were up 6% to 808, with further growth expected for day two and three.

At the sAACI educational workshop on greening, Event Greening Forum chairperson Justin Hawes hailed Meet-ings Africa as an example of an environ-mentally conscious show. He said Meet-ings Africa is only the second exhibition in south Africa to run on green power and is also being eco-audited for the first time.

this year’s innovations included a cor-porate brunch; an Association Day work-shop; an easy-to-navigate segmented exhibition floor; and the Poken, an inter-active networking device which serves as an electronic business card.

Meetings Africa will also host its first ever Golf Day on thursday, 24 February 2011 at Dainfern Country Club.

MEETINGS AFRICA ALREADY A SUCCESS

www.theevent.co.za

Registration at Sandton Convention Centre

MEETINGS AFRICA / 02

REDISCOVERING JOBURG AT RANDLORDSDIARISE

GENERAL EVENTS

SAACI Special General Meeting07h00 - 09h00, Sandton Convention Centre (SCC)

SAACI members only

Registration for Meetings Africa opens09h00, Entrance Foyer, SCC

Open to all trade

Meetings Africa exhibition10h00 - 18h00, Hall One, SCC

Open to all trade

GEARHOUSE PRESENTATION AREA

10h00 - 10h45: Grace Stead - Event Greening Forum11h00 - 11h45: Debora Patta - Why South

Africa Matters12h00 - 12h45: Justin Cohen - What’s Your Story?13h00 - 13h45: PQ Institute - Leadership Stamina14h00 - 14h45: Derek Houston - EIBTM & AIBTM15h00 - 15h45: Robin Wheeler - Being Yourself

for a Living16h00 - 16h45: Daryl Keywood - Site AGM

All presentations are open to all at The Presentation Area in Hall One at SCC. Speakers sponsored by

Unique Speaker Bureau.

THURSDAY

Meetings Africa Industry Golf Day11h00 – 17h00, Dainfern Country Club

MEETINGS Africa delegates relaxed at the end of day one at a stunning welcome party hosted by Johannesburg Tourism Company at Randlords, an exclusive rooftop bar and lounge beautifully poised at the highest point

of Braamfontein.

Trevor Latimer & Joyce DiMascio

Trevor Noah

The view from Randlords

The Scan on Show team

EXHIBITORSThe South African events industry took an important step towards a more sustain-able future at Meetings Africa 2011.

Seven representatives from key as-sociations relating to meetings, in-centives, conferences and events

(MICe) will meet to pledge their sup-port as founding members of The event Greening Forum (eGF), and add their signatures to its draft constitution.

“This is very big step for the industry and we at South African Tourism are fully supportive to this move, as it paves the way for meetings and conferences held in South Africa to be more sustain-able which is in line with business tour-ism global trend,” said nomasonto ndl-ovu, Business Tourism global manager at South African Tourism.

At this morning’s SAACI education-al workshop on greening, Scan Dis-play’s Justin Hawes gave an update on eGF, which he chairs.

He confirmed that EGF has re-ceived support from seven associa-tions who will be signing a memoran-dum at Meetings Africa so that the organisation can become a Section 21 company.

“Cop 17 is on our doorstop,” he said, referring to The United nations Climate Change Conference to be held in Durban later this year. “We need buy in from industry so we can make changes now. The events indus-try is extremely wasteful and we have to encourage greener events. You have to sell greening to get events.”

The eGF plans to set up a techni-cal panel for a certification process and green audits to address concerns about greenwashing.

More exciting news is that Services SeTA has approved funding for The event Greening Forum to hold green-ing workshops in Cape Town and Jo-hannesburg.

Hawes called Meetings Africa an example to the rest of the industry, as it is only the second exhibition in South Africa to run on green power.

He explains that organisers Scan on Show made a critical move towards a paperless exhibition by introducing online registration; an electronic cata-logue; and the Poken, a greener alter-native to exchanging business cards.

Other green aspects include the delegate bags, made by dis-advanged communities using local product; tension fabric walls for shell

scheme stand packages; and the Gautrain. In addition, the carpeting will be donated to disadvantaged communities.

Meetings Africa was chosen as the ideal platform for the eGF launch as it attracts all the key players from the meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICe) industries.

For more information about The eGF, visit www.eventgreening.co.za or stand 501C.

Sally Fink

MeeTInGS AFRICA / 03

Justin hawes, event Greening Forum chair

EVENT GREENING FORUM LAUNCHES AT MEETINGS AFRICA

SOUTH AFRICAN TOURISM REVAMPS BUSINESS TOURISM SITE

ONLINE MARKETINGIn a bid to ensure that South Africa is marketed as a world-class destination for conferences, incentives and other business tourism events, yesterday South African Tourism unveiled a revamped business tourism website.

“eqUIPPInG the business tourism in-dustry with tools to make a decision about doing business in South Af-

rica is extremely important,” says nomasonto ndlovu, global manager of Business Tour-ism at South African Tourism. “That is why we deemed it necessary and important to relook

at our website and make some improvements. The enhanced website has a lot more infor-mation about what South Africa has to offer from a business tourism perspective.”

William Price, global manager: e-market-ing, says, “More than 80% of people make their travel decisions online, including meet-ings and events planners, which is why we are constantly trying to enhance and improve their access to information that will con-vince them to choose South Africa as their next destination.“

new additions to the website include:•Access to more than 1 700 verified confer-ence facilities and service providers;

•A service that users can subscribe to for the latest news and updates on business tourism.

“Our focus is on South Africa’s ability to provide facilities and services to the millions of delegates who annually attend meetings, congresses, exhibitions, and business events and who participate in incentive travel and corporate hospitality. The site will allow plan-ners access to all the critical information need-ed to plan and execute a world-class event in South Africa,” says ndlovu. “Look out for more features as more improvements and additions are made to the site.”

visit www.southafrica.net/meetings for more information.

GREENING

The second day of Meetings Africa be-gan with a SAACI educational work-shop on greening, facilitated by Scan On Show’s Justin hawes, chair of The event Greening Forum.

Valerie Green, director of the Na-tional Business initiative’s Climate and energy Unit, spoke about the

business case for greening business tour-

ism in the South african context. She mentioned the importance of The

United Nations Climate Change Confer-ence (COP 17) taking place in Durban from 28 November-9December 2011.

“COP 17 is our new World Cup. We need to show these heads of state what we are capable of.”

The next speaker was Joyce DiMas-cio, a greening consultant and former head of Business events australia. She explained that australia faced a major

challenge, being a long haul destination at a time when this was seen as a nega-tive because of climate change. “Our goal was to change this perception and to place business events at centre stage. Our simple philosophy was to re-duce consumption and to lead through example,” she said.

The third speaker was Greg McMa-nus, managing director at the Heritage environmental Management Company (HeMC). He delivered a case study on the greening of the Nedbank Golf Chal-lenge, a major annual South african sporting event.

The methods used by HeMC were both innovative and groundbreaking. They were able to transform the waste water from portable toilets into grey wa-ter to irrigate the greens; solar power was used for energy and heating; and even sponsors like Spur pledged their support to ensure that all food packaging was recyclable.

The result was that The Nedbank Golf Challenge became Africa’s first carbon neutral sporting event and only one of three golf events in the world to be certi-fied carbon neutral.

“Wherever you go in the world, green meetings are the way forward,” says Mc-Manus. Visit stand 509 for more info.

GREEN IS THE ONLY COLOUR FOR BUSINESS TOURISM

MeeTiNGS aFriCa / 04

Valerie Green, SAACI GM Adene Pringle, Greg McManus, Joyce DiMascio, Justin hawes, and SAACI chair Nina Freysen-Pretorius

South African tourism (SAt) hosted an Association Day workshop alongside Meetings Africa yesterday.

Farieda Karod-domingo deilivered a case study on the bid to host The UNi World Congress, taking place in

Cape Town in 2014, the year that marks the 20th anniversary of our democracy.

She’s from SaSBO, a banking trade union representing 70 000 members. SASBO is affiliated to COSATU as well as UNi, the international trade union which represents 20 million members. UNi sector conferences take place annually and the world congress is every four years.

The South african bid committee, which she chairs, was created in 2004. The organising committee (OC) was tasked to represent South africa at the closing ceremony of last year’s World Congress held in Japan. “We wanted to show a high impact aV demonstration and give hand made gifts to all 3 000 del-egates,” says Karod-domingo.

The major challenge was money. “The cost of producing a dVd, sourc-ing gifts, packaging and transport was enormous. Unfortunately there’s not a lot of funding going around within a trade union,” she says.

South africa’s banks came to the

rescue as sponsors and SaT provided the high quality footage needed for the dVd, as well as the transport to Japan.

The first challenge was internal. Trade unions require an export permit for cou-riering gifts. When she failed to obtain one, she was saved by SaT, who let the OC use their internal channels.

The next challenge was The Japa-nese Health Ministry. “They kept sending the customs clearing form back because they wanted to know exactly where the

corporate goods were manufactured,” says domingo. Because the gifts, two hand crafted place mats and beaded spoons, were produced by a disadvan-taged community, domingo had to sup-ply the street address of the artist’s town-ship shack.

it was worth the effort. “at the clos-ing ceremony, the entire crowd were on their feet, dancing and blowing vuvuz-elas. We set the benchmark for what’s to come in 2014,” she says.

MeeTiNGS aFriCa / 05

Farieda Karod-Domingo, chair of the local organising committee for the uNI World Congress in 2014

ASSOCIATION DAY CONFERENCE ALONGSIDE MEETINGS AFRICA

MEETINGS AFRICA / 06

MEETINGS AFRICA EXHIBITORS’ NEWS HIGHLIGHTS

GENERAL INDUSTRYYOU can find the full versions of all of these breaking news highlights online at www.theevent.co.za, where you can also submit your stories for inclusion in the next monthly edition of The Event Newspaper.

SA Tourism launches Sports & Events Tourism ExchangeTo promote South Africa as a world-class host of international, large-scale events, Thebe Exhibitions and Project Group, sup-ported by SA Tourism (SAT) and The De-partment of Trade & Industry, will be host-ing a Sports & Events Tourism Exchange conference and exhibition between 27-29 July 2011 at Cape Town International

Convention Centre. For more informa-tion, visit www.sportsandevents.co.za.

Next business tourism event: Automechanika South AfricaAuToMEChANIkA South Africa will be held at The MTN Expo Centre from 9-12 March 2011. This major international automotive conference and exhibition will attract 300 international companies from 27 countries around the world. 750 international participants, including au-tomotive delegates from Africa, will join the 7 500 South African trade visitors. For more info, visit stand 707.

Durban KZN Convention Bureau wins bid for wildlife conferenceThE new Durban kwaZulu-Natal Con-vention Bureau have won the right to host the 2012 International Wildlife Man-agement Conference, which is set to attract between 700-1 000 international delegates and is expected to generate R10 million for the economy. For more info, visit stand 316.

Packed 2011 for Mother CityThE biggest association conference in Cape Town this year is The World Vet-erinary Congress, which is projected to attract 3 000 delegates, contribute R30

Cape Town will host SA Tourism’s Sports & Events Tourism Exchange in July 2011

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MEETINGS AFRICA / 07

million to the local economy and gener-ate 9 000 bed nights. To fi nd out about other events happening there this year, visit The Cape Town and Western Cape Convention Bureau at stand 615.

Pretoria climbs ICCA rankingsICCA 2009 statistics, collated by Drewe Associates on behalf of South African Tourism, indicates Pretoria/Tshwane added six meetings compared to 2008.For more information, visit CSIR Interna-tional Convention Centre at stand 1007.

Durban KZN Convention Bureau joinsFuture Cities Convention AllianceTHE Future Cities Convention Alliance have accepted the Durban KwaZulu-Natal Convention Bureau’s application to become members of this power-ful marketing alliance, which includes Seoul, London, Sydney, Toronto, San Francisco and Abu Dhabi. For more info, visit stand 316.

IMEX USA launchesALEX Donaldson, sales manager for IMEX, announced at Meetings Africa that IMEX America will launch in Las Vegas from 11-13 October 2011. “2 000 hosted buyers have been confi rmed, making IMEX America the largest hosted buyer

program in the US,” she says. So far, 1 500 exhibitors have been confi rmed.

Expo Centre undertakes researchCRAIG Newman, CEO of The MTN Expo Centre and chairman of Dogan Exhibi-tions and Events, says that exhibitions im-pact on business tourism is often under-estimated. The Expo Centre, which hosts business to business exhibitions such as

Electra Mining and Automechanika, will embark on a study to be completed throughout 2011 to assess the impact on business tourism of exhibition indus-try events hosted at his venue. “These statistics will provide invaluable data to the business tourism promotion agencies and highlight the value of business tour-ism achieved through direct private sec-tor initiatives,” said Newman.

Jeremy Hurter, acting CEO of ICC Durban, host of The International Wildlife Management Conference

ALL THE STAND AWARD WINNERS

EXHIBITION STANDSCONGRATULATIONS to all the stand award winners at Meetings Africa:

LARGE STAND: BIGGER THAN 25SQMNominees:•South African Parks•City of Tshwane Metropolitan•Cape Town & Western Cape Convention Bureau•MTN Expo Centre•Gautrain•FairmontRunner Up: Gauteng Tourism AuthorityWinner: Johannesburg Tourism Company

MEDIUM STAND: 10SQM–24SQMNominees:•Gearhouse Group of Companies•Cradle of Humankind•Khaya iBhubesi•Premier Hotels & Resorts & East London International Convention Centre•Hilton Hotels•Emerald Resort & Casino•CSIR International Convention Centre•Oasys InnovationsRunner Up: Peermont Winner: Legend Lodges, Hotels & Resorts

SMALL STAND: 9SQM OR LESSNominees:•City of Ekhuruleni Tourism•Sandton Convention Centre•Focus Rooms•Southern Sun Hotels•Villas & Hotels for Africa•Sunwa River Lodge•Scan On Show•Mabalingwe Nature Reserve•Avianto•Unlimited EventsRunner Up: Uniquely SpectacularWinner: NH Hoteles

Legend Lodges, Hotels & Resorts