Having spent some time each day at Meetings Africa last week, the MICE Academy checked out a number of exhibitors as well as looking in to the general visitor demographics, which seem to be pointing towards a likely re-adjustment.
Aside from the first day of the event, which was focussed on various conferences and workshop sessions, the general exhibitor consensus was that there was a lack of quality buyers, in other words the presence of serious corporate and association decision-makers intent on doing business did not appear to be present.
There is often a misconception that business tourism is a by-product of tourism hence the focus is more predominantly fixed on the accommodation, travel and hospitality sectors. For example an almost total reverse for IBTM 2016 in comparison to IBTM 2015 is expected.
Business tourism appears to be understood as tourism for business instead of for leisure. If this is indeed the interpretation, then the trend of less-than-satisfied exhibitors will continue, especially those exhibitors with dedicated convention facilities. Lest we forget – an independent planner in all their various guises is not an end-user decision-maker and by the same token – a number of the venue exhibitors appear unlikely to have stand personnel who are seasoned in MICE knowledge, let alone specific terminology related to the industry.
The majority of the visitor demographics were tourism related personnel, followed closely by an array of differing types of students seeking internship and in some cases just looking to find jobs.
The organisers of these types of shows will need to get to grips with what makes the genuine corporate or association event manager want to consider taking part in an event exhibition. To date it comes across that organisers have not cut it and merely skirt around the issue of event management as a tag-on to tourism etc.
Despite a possible strategic partner in the offing for SA Tourism’s basket of industry shows, albeit with a minimum equity share for the partner – the likelihood of taking serious cognisance of what will make Meetings Africa tick remains to be seen.
