The Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) celebrated a successful financial year amidst a challenging economic climate at its Annual General Meeting Results Press Conference held today, Tuesday 16 October 2012.
Speaking at the event, CTICC Chief Executive Officer Rashid Toefy said that the centre achieved profits before tax of R11-million for the past fiscal, a 163% increase over last year. More importantly, the centre continued to make a valuable contribution to the national and regional economy, adding R2.55-billion to South Africas Gross Domestic Product and R902-million to the Gross Geographic Product of the Western Cape, he added.
Toefy went on to explain that the CTICCs role in creating sustainable jobs in the Cape region cannot be underestimated. As a result of the centres activities more than 7 000 employment opportunities were created in the Western Cape and across South Africa. We will continue to build on this success and aim to create 8 000 jobs per year by 2014.
Over the past nine years of its existence, the CTICC has contributed nearly R20 billion to the countrys Gross Domestic Product. It is our goal to add another R18-billion to the countrys coffers over the next five years, and so realise our vision of becoming the best long-haul international convention centre by 2020, explains Toefy.
World leader in sustainability
In addition to its financial performance, the CTICC achieved great success in its sustainability performance. Last year we became the first convention centre in the world to have our sustainability initiatives aligned to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) framework. We have improved our performance from achieving a Level C Application last year to a Level B Application this year. In order to achieve this rating the centre needed to add more comprehensive reporting measures in place to record its sustainability initiatives.
Our values are entrenched in economic, social and environmental sustainability, and through initiatives such as this we are driven to continue to innovate and bring positive change to the meetings and events industry both locally and abroad, explained Toefy.
The GRI is a global network-based organisation that produces a comprehensive international sustainability reporting framework for leading organisations. In addition to its GRI reporting, the CTICC is also one of the few international convention centres to belong to the United Nations Global Compact and the Green Meetings Industry Council.
Raising Cape Towns global profile as leading meetings and events destination
The CTICC also built on its financial sustainability by posting a bumper meetings and events year. The number of events hosted by the centre has increased from 501 in 2010/2011 to 514 in the last financial year.
While there has been a slight decrease in the number of international conferences hosted at the CTICC – from 40 in 2010/2011 to 38 last year there was a big increase in the number of large international congresses of more than 1 000 delegates, from 9 in 2010/2011 to 15 in the past year.
More delegates equates to better economic spinoff for the city of Cape Town and the Western Cape. The CTICCs ability to steadily grow the number of international conventions and congresses it hosts also makes it a valuable contributor to raising the profile of the entire African continent as a leading international congress destination, said Toefy.
According to figures released by the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA), Africa only has a 3% share of the global association meetings market. South Africa enjoys nearly 30% of the total African market, having hosted 84 of the 302 international association meetings that took place on the continent over the past year.
The fact that 45% of these association meetings were hosted in Cape Town speaks volumes about the effectiveness of the CTICC, and all the other stakeholders in the citys business events industry, in promoting Cape Town as a highly desirable destination for association meetings, said Toefy.
The CTICC has secured 150 international conferences until 2018, including the 6th World Congress of Paediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery in 2013, the World Congress of Nephrology in 2015 and, in 2016, the 35th International Geological Congress, which is expected to lure 10 000 international delegates to Cape Town. In addition, 79 exhibitions, 70 national conferences, 44 trade fairs and 67 special events have been booked at the centre until 2018.
The sustainability of the CTICCs events book is further bolstered by the success it achieved by partnering with numerous local and national clients to grow the scope and success of several repeat world-famous events which have Cape Town as their base. These include the Cape Town International Jazz Festival, the Design Indaba, and the Investing in Africa Mining Indaba. These events bring in billions in combined revenue for the Western Cape and South African economy and has helped position Cape Town as a leading international meetings destination, said Toefy.
Expansion on track
Last year the centre announced an ambitious expansion project that would double the CTICCs meetings and exhibition capacity.
In addition to the award-winning architectural design team, comprised of a consortium of architects from Stauch Vorster Architects, Van der Merwe Miszewski Architects, and Makeka Design Lab, the full professional team has been appointed. The project is already at the design development stage, where the seamless integration of the expanded facility with the existing CTICC is being developed in order to ensure that the expansion meets the growing needs and demands of local and international exhibition and conference organisers.
The expansion is also poised to take full advantage of the expanded public transport system that the City of Cape Town is implementing with its MyCiti bus service, making it a central node for locals and visitors to the city, and will play a pivotal role in raising Cape Towns profile as a leading global meetings and events destination.
Toefy concluded by saying that despite the pending outcomes of various legislative processes that fall outside the CTICCs sphere of influence, should the centre receive the necessary green light in the next few months, the expansion is on track for completion by 2015.
