"These include conference and exhibition venues, hotels, lodges and car rental companies, as well as providers of services such as technical support, catering and event management," says Group Managing Director Carol Weaving. "Meetings Africa will be the proverbial one-stop shop for anyone in the business tourism industry."
Exhibitors from outside South Africa will represent products and services from Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia. Specialist publishers from Germany and Australia will also exhibit.
Hosted international delegates include buyers from the United Kingdom, Germany, the USA, France, Italy and Belgium.
Weaving says Meetings Africa, to be staged for the second time this year, has caught the attention of the international business tourism industry. "Our aim is to make it an essential event on the industry calendar, much like similar exhibitions held in Europe and elsewhere.
"It is underpinned by generic marketing undertaken by South African Tourism. The country is made visible by them, and Meetings Africa provides the actual products on offer to corporate travellers or business tourists."
The International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) currently ranks South Africa the 31st most popular meeting country in the world. In terms of the number of scheduled meetings between 2005 and 2016, South Africa ranks eighteenth.
South Africa is the top meetings destination in Africa, followed by Egypt and Tunisia.
Visitors can pre-register for Meetings Africa on www.meetingsafrica.co.za.
