Whether buying real estate or planning a conference the old maxim applies: Location, Location, Location.
As South African town planning increasingly looks to mixed-use developments to integrate business, leisure and multiple economic tiers of residential units, the benefits for the MICE industry is clearly evident.
South Africa as an international meetings destination is still reaping the rewards of a relatively weak currency that makes the long haul destination worth the spend, while the local conferencing industry is a growth market.
South Africa was ranked 2nd in the UK’s Meetings & Incentive Travel 2009 Trends and Spends Survey, which is a survey of destinations and traffic volume, and reports the results of groups operated overseas by the UK’s top agencies in 2008. South Africa received 17.4% of the long haul by country delegate nights.
And in the 2007 survey Cape Town topped the list of favourite long-haul destination cities, while South Africa was again voted the second favourite long-haul destination country.
Among the reasons that SA is so popular is value for money, an excellent business tourism infrastructure, ease of access, first class wining and dining and the use of English as the language of business.
SA Tourism reported earlier this year that South Africa is also increasingly marketing to business tourists. Even though they only make up an average of 5% of foreign arrivals to the country, they spend up to three times more than leisure tourists.
Business visitors, including those attending conferences, exhibitions and incentive trips, contribute 4%, or approximately R2.3-billion, to South Africa's total tourism revenue. Some 40% of business visitors return to the country within five years of their first visit, while 18% go on leisure trips prior to their business activities and 22% do the same afterwards.
Statistics from the Southern African Association for the Conference Industry show that South Africa is ranked 32nd globally for business tourism, with 1.3% of the market, a figure which the body expects to increase to 2% over the next few years.
According to SA Tourism there are in excess of 1 000 world-class conference and exhibition venues, ranging from intimate bush hideaways to large-scale, hi-tech convention centres. Most of them offer a wealth of leisure activities from walking with elephants to luxury shopping and relaxation.
South Africa’s increasing development of combination business and lifestyle nodes, such as the proposed Newtown revitalisation project and Melrose Arch in Johannesburg and Century City in Cape Town, is good news for the MICE industry for precisely those leisure reasons. Placing conferencing hotels in these developments effectively creates a “one stop shop” for conference organisers.
Using Century City as a case study, some 20 million people visit the secured 250ha precinct annually. It contains the southern hemisphere’s largest shopping centre (Canal Walk), the Ratanga Junction theme park, scores of restaurants, 3D-capable cinemas and the corporate headquarters of a large number of national and international companies. It also has its excellent transport links including its own railway station for commuter trains to and from Cape Town’s CBD and an internal shuttle service within the Century City precinct. It’s less than 20 minutes from Cape Town International Airport and as close to the CBD and the V&A Waterfront.
It therefore made sense when the development opportunity arose, to build an executive conferencing hotel within the precinct. The African Pride Crystal Towers Hotel & Spa’s development site was also appealing: directly across the Grand Canal from Canal Walk and on the opposite side close to Ratanga Junction and an extremely large Virgin Active gym.
The hotel was planned at the outset to be a convention centre and it’s now the second largest in Cape Town after the Cape Town International Convention Centre. However, The African Pride Crystal Towers Hotel & Spa is unique in that everything conference delegates need, is on site.
The hotel itself is a superior deluxe location to work and stay. It has fine dining on site, as well as a spa, so it is a self-contained “play” location as well. Over and above that there is the wealth of shopping and entertainment right on the doorstep; everything within walking distance and within a security precinct.
As a model it’s been such a success that in the hotel’s first year of operations the convention centre had to expand. It now has eight boardrooms and four large meeting rooms.
The same principles apply to lifestyle precincts such as Melrose Arch and Umhlanga Town Centre just outside Durban.
Much of the business through the doors of both the Protea Hotel Umhlanga Ridge and the Protea Hotel Fire & Ice! Melrose Arch is conferencing and it’s a growth market. When the Newtown development is complete it will most likely also become an attractive location to the meetings industry.
As a conferencing business model, nodal development is a success story and before long we’re likely to see many more of these precincts being developed across South Africa. Placing conference venues within these developments can only be good for the industry because it’ll offer a greater selection of venues and as a consequence increase much needed business tourism revenue to SA.
