INDUSTRY ROLE PLAYER

Leroy Ferreira, corporate sales manager at Fancourt, shares his personal and professional views and aspirations with Meetings magazine.

1

Where do you see the MICE industry currently, where would you like to see this in the next five to ten years and what will it take to get there?

Much like most of the hospitality industry, it will probably take the next 24 months to recover, reinvent itself and relaunch its USPs both nationally and internationally. The one thing that lockdown has shown us is that virtual will never replace face-to-face. The industry must now embrace technology and use it as part of a successful event and not as a replacement for events. For us at Fancourt, flights to and from George are more often than not the biggest hurdle towards securing more business but, through industry partnerships, we stay abreast of all the geopolitical happenings and ensure that our voice is heard.

2

What do you enjoy the most about what you do?

From concept to production of the actual event, what we do involves a myriad of people and it all comes together at some point in order to create a success. There is always a mixture of information overload, pressure, confusion, frantic emails and phone calls but – ultimately – it ends with big smiles on our clients’ faces. And that is very satisfactory.

3

What are some of your career highlights?

I have met many champions of industry and celebs over the past 24 years of being in the hospitality industry, but the single biggest highlight is still every single time I am part of a recruitment team that says to a candidate, “We choose you!”

LEROY’S PRO TIP:

Create a solution, find a fix to the problem, and don’t give up. If you can effect change, you must.