INDUSTRY NEWS

SA Tourism advances the business events sector through collaboration at IBTM World

Partnerships and collaborations are key to propelling the global business events sector. This is the sentiment as the South African National Convention Bureau (SANCB) showcased South Africa’s business events capabilities at IBTM World in Barcelona, Spain.

IBTM World, which took place from 29 November to 1 December, brought together over three thousand destinations and 15,000 industry professionals from over one hundred countries across the world with the sole purpose to meet and create better business results for the business events industry.

During IBTM World, SANCB partnered with IBTM World’s Association Leadership Forum (ALF) to host associations. This forum forged knowledge sharing and engagement with the association community.

“The SANCB is committed to business events and capacity building, particularly post the pandemic, ensuring that we are rebuilding and strengthening together as the globe. Through our partnership and collaboration with the ALF, we are demonstrating the strength that comes with working as a collective in achieving a common goal, in this case the goal is to emerge stronger, whilst showcasing our resilience as a business events sector to continue thriving, for the advancement of business events globally and in Africa,” said Zinhle Nzama, acting chief convention bureau officer at the SANCB.

The South African delegation, led by the South African National Convention Bureau, comprised of 18 exhibitors including three SMMEs, and showcased the country’s diverse services.

Ms Nzama said that the SANCB has attended a few other global platforms to showcase South Africa’s business events offerings and utilised the IBTM World platform to further showcase the South Africa business events sector to the global community.

“Throughout this year, we have made headway on the various platforms we have participated in. The key insight we have found is that the business events community already knows about South Africa, which goes to show that we have done the awareness job, ours is now to bring people to South Africa to host their business events,” Ms Nzama continued.

On the second day of IBTM, Wednesday, 30 November 2022, the South African National Convention Bureau hosted a media briefing to provide key and exciting updates to South Africa’s business events sector.

“This platform was utilised to reassure the global business events industry that South Africa is open for business, and to showcase the improvements we have made to our offerings over the past while,” Ms Nzama concluded.

During IBTM, the SANCB took the opportunity to invite the sector to Meetings Africa, which takes place from 27 February to 1 March 2023, to come and experience the best of Africa’s business events products and experiences under one roof.