We are in a time of renewal

As we move into Spring, there is a sense of renewal that wasn’t there before.

Isuppose the fact that many hotels are also reopening this month after being closed for five months, is the first step to our sectors renewal.

From what I can see, it appears we have reached our Covid-19 peak and the numbers are steadily decreasing and we are all feeling more hopeful than we have in the past few months.

Our sector, unfortunately is still effectively closed, with the restriction of 50 delegates being our biggest hindrance. The SA Events Council, with the support of all the associations, has been lobbying to open our sector. Currently exhibitions and live events are still completely closed. Conferencing has had to adapt to a hybrid format, which has been effective but is still not the same as meeting face to face.

Chat’r TV has been in the forefront of assisting with virtual events and has over the last few months assisted the industry through a series of informative webinars to keep the sector competitive.

Collaboration remains our sectors main strength at the moment. We are all ready to get going, and do what we do best. We just need the green light from government. Even then, it will still take a few months for us to get off the ground and possibly a year or two before we get to where we were pre-Covid-19.

The tourism sector bodies have been busy lobbying government to open international travel as soon as October 2020. The concern is, there is currently a second wave of Covid-19 and international travel will escalate what we are still going to go through. The uncertainty of this virus and its devastating consequences on the world unfortunately remains.

What I am sure is; we need to start living again and that means going back to some semblance of our normal which includes conferences, events, exhibitions and incentives. If we can’t open international business now, then the alternative is we have a captive audience in South Africa ready to travel and experience life again. The business events sector is a big part of this life – we create experiences and memories through our incentives and live events;

we make big things happen and our economic and social impact is immense through our congresses and exhibitions.

Even though we can’t have the international delegate physically here, we can still have them virtually, but this won’t happen until government gives us the green light to open up business events in South Africa for the locals, who are so ready.

The time is now, we need to find our way through this myriad of uncertainty and it requires letting the business events sector to operate.

I’m ready and am excited to see you at all the upcoming events that will start soon. Irene

Email: gomesi@iafrica.com