The Northern province of South Africa, Limpopo has been showcasing the region’s Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Events (MICE) potential at the just ended IMEX in Frankfurt-Germany.
Limpopo Tourism Agency (LTA) Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Ms. Nomasonto Ndlovu, was part of the South African delegation, representing Limpopo Province at IMEX, which is the most important trade exhibition show where all the influencers from the world of meetings, events and incentive travel gather for three electric days of business, innovation and networking. IMEX is also renowned for attracting top quality hosted buyers along with thousands of trade visitors.
IMEX is attended by over 5 100 plus global decision makers with qualified buying power including the valuable including the valuable German outbound market. It is further attended by over 3 500 exhibitors from over 160 countries. The show also serves as an educational platform with over 250 events over three days. IMEX attracts all types of service providers who have something to offer for events such as hotels, incentive and event agencies, convention centres, meeting and conference planners, event companies and many more. Among visitors are primarily event planners from agencies, various companies, associations and business travel managers as well as marketing managers that are responsible for planning of events.
The CEO of LTA, Ms. Nomasonto Ndlovu is excited to be part of this great show and she said, “This is a must attend travel show for us in Limpopo given the type of market it attracts. We could not stay behind as this is critical for us to attend especially after our presence at Africa’s Travel Indaba where we did very well and even named the most visited Province in South Africa on the domestic tourism front. It is a show we think will contribute the numbers we need of tourists coming from many of these countries that are present at this show. The numbers tell us that we are second after Gauteng with international arrivals and we really humbled by this and we wish to maintain or improve on our position. We have just successfully held the second edition of Tour de Limpopo cycle race and I am impressed with how the world has received the proceedings of the event. The event has the propensity to contribute more numbers of tourists from other parts of the world who will come for leisure to experience more of what Limpopo has to offer. We have brought two SMME’s (Besty Travel and AM Lodge) to this great show for purposes of market access and exposure”.
LTA’s destination marketing efforts are underpinned by the 5 in 5 strategy that is jointly owned by South African Tourism (SAT) and all the nine Provincial Tourism Authorities. The idea behind the 5 in 5 strategy is to drive the strategic alignment, ensure proportionate resource allocation and coordination of marketing activity across all key industry role players.
“We are currently reconstructing its convention bureau in line with the new organisational structure. It is against this background that we have also been accepted as an International Convention & Congress Association (ICCA) member, which gives us access to international associations looking for host destinations and venues for meetings. We will for that reason continue to bid for mega events and meetings as that will bring more tourists to our province. The benefits for us to attend this show among others include, global exposure and syndicated brand awareness to a marketing platform of key global decision makers in Meetings, Incentives Conferences and Events (MICE); target business to business meetings with targeted buyers and media; educate trade about destination Limpopo products and developments; and engage with key MICE buyers that sell South Africa to the European market. I hope the benefits will also trickle down to our communities through more job opportunities due to more tourists coming to our Province after this show, said Ndlovu”.
