MEETINGS AFRICA ALREADY A SUCCESS
Registration at Sandton Convention Centre
OVERVIEW By the end of day two, Meetings Africa 2011 had already improved on last year’s show in a number of key areas.
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ost importantly, more business than ever before is being done at Meetings Africa, thanks to the sophisticated matchmaking programme implemented by outsmart Marketing.
“A record 7 387 meeting requests were sent, with 6176 (83.61%) already actioned half-way through day two,” says Nomasonto Ndlovu, south African tourism’s global manager: Business tourism. “over 3 222 meetings had been confirmed by that stage.” scan on show’s Jacqui Reynolds says, “our goal was to have 60% of the meeting requests actioned. We’re now up to 83%, which is super.”
Meetings Africa is also generating more press coverage than last year, with registered local media up an impressive 66% by the end of day one. south African tourism is hosting a number of African trade partners at the show, which has also led to increased editorial coverage across the continent. Even before the African press conference on tuesday, Meetings Africa had been featured in Nigerian Tribune, Compass, and Daily Independent. At the end of day one, local visitors, excluding media, were up 6% to 808, with further growth expected for day two and three. At the sAACI educational workshop on greening, Event Greening Forum chairperson Justin Hawes hailed Meetings Africa as an example of an environmentally conscious show. He said Meetings Africa is only the second exhibition in south Africa to run on green power and is also being eco-audited for the first time. this year’s innovations included a corporate brunch; an Association Day workshop; an easy-to-navigate segmented exhibition floor; and the Poken, an interactive networking device which serves as an electronic business card. Meetings Africa will also host its first ever Golf Day on thursday, 24 February 2011 at Dainfern Country Club.
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