An increasing number of medical conferences are being held in Cape Town, in the Cape Town International Convention Centre in particular. The City has just won two major bids for medical conferences in the next three years, expected to generate R48 million in revenue for the city, and 16500 ‘delegate days’, reports Cape Business News.
The ’16th International Congress of Infectious Diseases’ will take place in 2014, and the Convention Centre beat Melbourne for the honour of hosting the conference. Cape Town beat Vancouver in its bid to host the ‘International Urogynecological Association 2016’ conference. The conferences will follow on the 10000 delegate ‘International Conference on AIDS and STI in Africa’, to be held in Cape Town in December. The ‘Investing in Africa Mining Indaba’, hosting 7500 delegates last week, had a tremendous revenue benefit for Cape Town.
The planned doubling in the size of the Cape Town International Convention Centre is expected to lead to 40 or more international conferences being hosted in the city from 2016, a doubling in the current conference number, making Cape Town ‘one of the world’s top long-haul conference destinations’, said Rashid Toefy, the CEO of the Cape Town International Convention Centre. This is excellent news for Cape Town’s tourist industry, as there is no doubt that large international conferences are good for the accommodation, restaurant, taxi, and airline business!
Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter:@WhaleCottage
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This is GREAT news 🙂 wish we can get more bang for our “buck” in securing better use of the stadium……
Absolutely Trevor.
Councillor Grant Pascoe is in the UK right now to sign up some soccer games for the Cape Town Stadium. Perhaps they should make the Stadium a conference venue too.
Chris
Conferencing Venue is a super great idea…..GOOD on Grant Pascoe – what happened to the Commercial opportunities that were investigated under Morne Du Plessis? I know there were issues with Trading licenses etc? Do we think the V&A Waterfront could be a reason for no Retail at the Stadium? Still think we are missing an opportunity
The Stadium precinct needs to be rezoned to allow retail operations at the Stadium Trevor. The Green Point ratepayers are not happy with this, already complaining about the noise.
Chris
The Stadium saga is ridiculous. The latest figures show that maintenence costs will be just short of 60 Million and income 15 million so far… included is all the soccer held,including the Man United and Ajax, gaga, red hot chili peppers and the religious revivals… all for 15-16 million and expenses are currently 6o million.! Someone should tell pasco to forget soccer and get his rear end back on the first plane home and start looking for bulldozers just like the sensible South Koreans did.
They must be quite desperate to have sent Pascoe overseas, and there has been no word of results achieved thusfar Pieter!
Chris