Hard on the heels of the opening of the Cape Town International Convention Centre, Port Elizabeth has started to develop plans to build its own international convention centre that will accommodate between 900 and 1200 delegates.
Further signs of expanding opportunities in SA's convention industry are evident with the entry of Tourvest and Thebe Tourism into the sector.
Southern African Association for the Conference Industry chairman Alec Gilbert said yesterday that one of the main reasons for the surge in the number of conferences held in SA was that professional associations held their annual conferences in a different destination each year and were bound to choose SA at some stage since the country was now firmly on the conference map.
There was potential also in the corporate conference sector.
Kagiso Exhibitions CEO Craig Newman said conferencing was definitely a good business to be in over the next 10 to 20 years.
SA was being recognised as a cost-effective destination and it also performed well for international conferences, he said.
SA attracts about 2% of all international conferences, but Newman estimates that number could peak at a 10% to 15% share in the next 10 years, and settle in the long term at 8% to 10%.
Gilbert agreed that there was a growing realisation that SA was an acceptable destination to hold conferences.
Port Elizabeth Regional Chamber of Commerce and Industry operations director Wendy Jefferson said the chamber identified a need for a convention centre because there was nothing of suitable size in the region.
The project was raised with the Port Elizabeth mayor and chairman of the economic development committee and they had shown enthusiasm for it. It was now a metropolitan initiative with business represented on the steering committee. Prefeasibility and feasibility studies concluded that the project was viable, and a number of potential sites were now being inspected.
The cost of the centre, as well as whether it will require adjoining facilities such as a hotel, would be determined, at least partly, by the choice of site.
To provide some comparison, Cape Town's convention centre, which opened officially last month, has two auditoriums, one seating 1500 people and the other 600, 33 breakout rooms and 10000m² of exhibition space.
Ahead of its opening it secured more than 134 conference bookings, of which 100 were international conferences.
Tourvest and Thebe Tourism's recent moves have been into conference organisation businesses specifically.
Last week, Tourvest announced it had bought 100% of Global Conferences, a professional conference organiser, as well as a stake in two black economic empowerment firms.
A month ago, Thebe Tourism, a subsidiary of Thebe Investment, announced it had formed Thebe Conventions to service SA's convention market.
Thebe Conventions will operate in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town, managing and organising national and international conferences for associations, corporations and government.
