CTICC ready for 2012 events

The Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) is gearing up for a busy year of international conferences and events in 2012 and has secured 178 international conferences from now until 2020.
Speaking at the centre’s annual results press conference, CTICC CEO Rashid Toefy said: “While the aftershocks of the global recession contributed to a slight decline in the total number of events hosted at the CTICC, the centre managed to meet its targets and achieve a record number of delegate days.”
The CTICC attracted a total of 1 243 910 visitor days to Cape Town, an 11% increase from the 1 119 852 days it generated in the previous year. While the number of meetings and events did not grow substantially there was an increase in attendance across all event categories such as international, national conferences, exhibitions and trade fairs and special events.
Toefy said: “At a time when the global recession has impacted negatively on many businesses around the world, the CTICC has produced a result that serves to entrench the status of Cape Town and the CTICC as a highly attractive meetings and events destination.
“The centre’s success can be attributed to the fact the CTICC has always focused primarily on international association business as these markets are fairly recession-proof.
“We have noticed that the nature of how people book meetings and events is changing and that factors such as return on investment, sourcing and contract negotiations and supporting technology platforms are influencing decision processes. The result is that event organisers are becoming more savvy and less likely to contract in advance, with the effect that lead times are being reduced” he added.
“The flexibility of the CTICC to meet its clients’ needs has stood it in good stead in terms of meeting this demand.”
Short lead times reduced the planning process and a venue that was not able to adapt to changing its processes would struggle to survive. “As the economy slowly recovers from the recession, we expect to see a significant increase in the number of international conferences, exhibition trade fairs and special events.
Toefy said that the CTICC was well on its way to achieving its vision of being the best long-haul international convention centre by 2020 and has a portfolio of over 900 events booked until 2020.