The 16th Meetings Africa event – to be held at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg from February 28 to March 2 – has targeted around 150 exhibitors and 200 buyers from 50 countries.
To date, 298 buyers have applied to attend and 70 exhibitors have signed on for this year’s event.
The 2020 Meetings Africa, which was one of the last global tourism events held that year following COVID-19 being declared a pandemic, was hailed as the biggest one ever, with 321 exhibitors from 20 African countries and 313 MICE buyers from across the globe.
“We’re excited that this event is back as it signals the start of recovery for the hard-hit sector,” said Acting CEO of South African Tourism, Themba Khumalo, at a media briefing in Cape Town this morning (Wednesday, February 9).
He acknowledged that conditions were “still not perfect” but encouraged physical attendance at the event to help restore the world’s confidence in Africa’s business events offering and to showcase its innovative thinking in “getting back to business”.
Chief Convention Bureau Officer of the South African National Convention Bureau – a division of SA Tourism – Amanda Kotze-Nhlapo, agreed that there were challenges for exhibitors and buyers to attend in person. “We know some buyers’ country restrictions make it difficult for them to travel and so we have made the concession for those buyers to attend virtually – with an allotted meeting time at a specific stand – to ensure opportunities are not missed.”
Addressing another challenge, the fact that industry needs to carefully consider their budgets, Kotze-Nhlapo said the Meetings Africa team wanted industry to recover and would therefore provide as much support as possible to participants.
“There are different packages on offer and we are encouraging them not to take massive stands but to at least have a presence,” she said.
Shared Minds. Shared Economies.
Meetings Africa 2022 will continue its theme of ‘Shared Minds. Shared Economies’, with the key objective being to demonstrate how African tourism entrepreneurs continue to make strides in reaching economies of scale by leveraging shared resources.
“Utilising this strategic business platform will enable us to restore the bridges between exhibitors and buyers in order to compete on a global scale,” said Kotze-Nhlapo, adding that the theme was to also demonstrate how the African business events industry had applied the trend of “shared economies” to their business models to achieve greater efficiencies, and how this had created a sustainable way of driving business growth in the sector.
“Business events have a symbiotic relationship with many other industries, including airlines, hotels and venues, transport, catering, and cleaning. This means our industry’s recovery is highly dependent on the simultaneous recovery of other enabling industries in the tourism and hospitality ecosystem,” she said, highlighting that the Meetings Africa platform would be the springboard for recovery for the broader sector.
‘Inclusive platform’
Kotze-Nhlapo said Meetings Africa 2022 would create an inclusive platform that included the following initiatives:
- SMME pavilion that will host 24 business events’ SME products;
- Sustainability Village – showcase of various authentic South African ranges of craft products;
- Youth dedicated programme – 50 delegates to participate from across South Africa (supported by Tourism Educators of SA Association – TESA and IMEX Future Leaders Forum);
- Women in Tourism prioritisation across all platforms.
A stringent COVID management plan has been put in place to ensure the health and safety of all attendees. Vaccinated and unvaccinated guests will be allowed to attend, with the latter required to undergo a PCR test at the venue.
