Excitement as Sun City reopens for business

One of the country’s biggest conference and incentive destinations, Sun City Resort, has reopened its doors on 2 September after more than 150 days of closure due to lockdown regulations. Business Events Africa was invited to Sun City to experience the re-opening safety protocols. The excitement and energy levels of the staff was tangible.

Brett Hoppé, general manager of Sun City Resort shared some insights. Clearly passionate about his staff, he said they have come back re-energised.

On the unforeseen closure, he said: “If you had said to me in January that in March we will shut down Sun City - a property which has traded 24/7, 365 days a year for the past 40 years - and not trade for 156 days, I would not have believed it.

Mr Hoppé reflected on that time when he did site checks around the resort and saw the wildlife come out from the bushes and drink from the hotel pools. One evening they even had a leopard take a night-time stroll through the porte-cochère (covered entrance to a building) of the Soho Hotel, he said.

The reality is that the tourism industry has been decimated by the Covid-19 lockdown.

At this stage, the reopening is partial with initial hotel visitors mainly from the Johannesburg and Pretoria area and the Sun Vacation Club playing catch-up to accommodate member bookings.

Mr Hoppé said challenges which remained were the lack of international inbound flights, seeing that 30 per cent of Sun City’s guests were international; restrictions on conferences - an important source of revenue for Sun City - and ensuring proper compliance with

all Covid-19 protocols. Sun City has now moved to a virtual hybrid studio of high quality to limit the capacity to 50 people at a time and instead host delegates via Sun Studio, a virtual studio.

“We are not just observing the protocols for the sake of ticking a box, but we will execute the protocols and make sure they are adhered to. Once regulations are lifted we don’t foresee protocols falling away. We will maintain protocols to ensure the continuous safety of our customers.”

Safety protocols have been taken very seriously with Mr Hoppé describing Sun City as a “bio-bubble” where, once inside, staff and guests could be secure in the knowledge they were in a safe space. “We are forever in a changed reality,” he said.

“We have to make sure we are able to service and still apply the protocols.”

From the time one arrives at the gate, pre-screening is done and there are temperature checks, sanitising stations and physical distancing applications at every facility across the site. In the restaurants, food safety is paramount; menus are disposable, cutlery is packaged, and buffets have been replaced with food covered and served in individual portions.

Hotels and facilities at Sun City are being reopened in phases. For current information about what is open, visit the website.

Sable Fountain at The Palace of the Lost City.

All Covid-19 Protocols deployed.

SUN INTERNATIONAL LEVEL 1

Graham Wood: group chief operating officer hospitality at Sun International, made the following statement: The move to level 1 lockdown restrictions is a relief, especially relaxing the curfew, permitting leisure facilities to allow 50 per cent of capacity, and allowing larger gatherings from midnight on 20 September. This means our entertainment and conferencing facilities can begin to operate again.

Our casinos have been trading since July but the news that international borders will be gradually opened from 1 October is encouraging, as this gives greater clarity to the industry. The road ahead will not be easy but we can now plan for the recovery of the hospitality and conferencing segments of our business. This is especially important for our key properties such as The Palace, Sun City, The Table Bay Hotel, The Maslow Sandton, the Wild Coast Sun and The Boardwalk.

Our Covid-19 health and safety protocols are firmly embedded in our operational procedures and we remain committed to ensuring the health and safety of all of our customers and staff.

Conferencing at Sun City goes virtual

As Sun International welcomes guests back to its As Sun International welcomes guests back to its casinos and hotels, with strict social distancing casinos and hotels, with strict social distancing protocols, the company has also made virtual protocols, the company has also made virtual conferencing available. conferencing available.

Sun City Convention Centre’s virtual conferencing takes your current virtual meetings a step further and is the ideal virtual venue to host company events, webinars, and conferences during this trying time.

The virtual conferencing offering will also help rebuild South Africa’s shattered economy, as the meetings, incentives, conventions, exhibitions and events industry attracts about onemillion delegates a year at business events locally, supporting more than 250,000 jobs directly and indirectly in this subsector, according to the South African National Convention Bureau.

“Although virtual conferencing will not employ this many people, it will use hightech connectivity solutions, break down distance barriers and allow companies to create endless themes that enhance their business objectives,” said Brett Hoppé, general manager of Sun City.

Sun International’s virtual conferencing training or meeting platforms can accommodate small or big sessions of more than 500 delegates, with different links from each presenter or organiser.

Speakers are hosted in the Sun City Convention Centre Studio, which provides access to a Hi-res LED wall, web presenter and AV equipment such as HD cameras, studio lighting, as well as on-screen effects such as branding, also possible. The streaming platforms, over 100Mbps of bandwidth a day, is set up according to the client’s specifications.

More than 500 remote attendees can access live conferences, meetings and presentations from their phones, computers, tablets or laptops. They participate with questions and comments via a link created for the meeting.

Sun City Convention Centre has made vast streaming platforms available for: • Virtual conferences and summits • Live and virtual hybrid events • Live streaming • Team building • Webinars and training events “We’ve also built this solution to be platform agnostic, so we can offer the streaming on platforms such as, Antenna, powered by AntFarm, Zoom, WebEx, Vimeo, and Facebook, among others,” Mr Hoppé said.

For companies worried about productivity, Sun City provides comprehensive analytics by device on demand or post-event. This includes participant viewing time, user registration information, as well as geographical region.

All conference sessions will be recorded and provided to the organiser after the event, allowing them to be posted to websites or the channel of your choice, expanding the audience if required.

“This service is provided with complete adherence to health and safety regulations during Covid-19. This includes contactless temperature monitoring using thermal screening cameras and daily completion of declaration forms for contact tracing,” Mr Hoppé said.

In addition, there are multiple sanitising stations around the studio area, all technical staff wear complete personal protective equipment, and the studio is disinfected before each event, Mr Hoppé concluded.

GROUPS AND EVENTS ENQUIRIES +27 14 557 1000 scenq@suninternational.com