Carlo Petersen
THE Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) secured 20 bids for major international conferences up until 2020 during the last financial year.
This feat, along with hosting 535 events since July 2013, was mentioned at the CTICC’s annual general meeting as key factors contributing to its success.
The conference and exhibition centre held its annual meeting on Tuesday and revealed a contribution of R3.1 billion to the national GDP. Over the past decade, the CTICC also made a contribution in excess of R25bn to the national economy and contributed more than R22bn to the Western Cape economy.
Chief executive Julie-May Ellingson said: “The ability of the CTICC and Cape Town to secure major international conferences is a significant component of its success.
“Twenty bids have been secured up until the year 2020 during the year under review.”
She said 33 international conferences across a broad spectrum of sectors related to agro processing, the green economy, ICT, property, mining and medical issues were hosted at the CTICC.
“These are sectors that are aligned to the City of Cape Town and Western Cape government’s economic growth strategies,” she said.
A few large-scale events which were hosted included the International Food and Agribusiness Management Association Congress, World Green Building Council Congress, Gartner Symposium/ ITxpo, Investing in African Mining Indaba and the 8th World Congress of the World Society for Paediatric Diseases.
Ellingson added that the centre was keen to complete the expansion of the CTICC East as it was facing space constraints and was having to turn away requests for events.
“The expansion will allow us to stage more events, offer more flexibility and allow for an increase in the concurrent hosting of various sizes of meetings, conventions, exhibitions and other events,” she said.
Recently allegations of tender irregularities for the R700 million architectural contract put the project in jeopardy, but Ellingson insisted that although there was evidence of “procedural flaws”, nothing warranted cancelling the tender.
When complete, the CTICC East will add 10 000m2 of exhibition and event space.
Some R100m has been spent on construction of CTICC East so far.
The process is expected to create 3 000 jobs over the next six years and the main construction work – which is to cost about R832m – begins in February next year and is set for completion by early 2017.