(Pictured from left: Glenton De Kock, Kim Roberts and Esmare Steinhofel)
A new partnership agreement between ICCA and the Southern African Association for the Conference Industry (SAACI) was announced Feb. 25 at Meetings Africa in Johannesburg, South Africa.
ICCA has designed a program for strategic collaboration with a small number of organizations which have a clear interest in developing long-term business relations with ICCA’s Association Community and the broad mass of ICCA membership, like SAACI. The objective is to exchange information and cross-promotion of both associations.
“ICCA has been developing the international meetings industry in Africa extensively through the active participation of its members and association community,” says ICCA CEO Senthil Gopinath. “The African meetings industry is very keen on building the knowledge economy and as the global meetings industry association we make every effort to support the African meetings industry and its objective to also achieve societal development through meetings. ICCA has been stressing the importance of collaboration among the African meetings industry and initiating joint efforts with SAACI to achieve such objectives. I would like to thank SACCI for their support over the years and am delighted to welcome this extended collaboration among ICCA and SAACI. I am convinced it will help grow ICCA’s supplier and association community in the African region.”
Kim Roberts, SAACI national chairperson, explains: “We are extremely pleased to conclude this partnership for both SAACI and ICCA. It is important for SAACI to work with ICCA in the drive of knowledge sharing that makes this partnership so relevant and important for the business events industry within Africa. We are looking forward to the exchange of critical information on events held across the continent which will allow for sharing of crucial information to the bidding process for future events such as contacts, budgets, and the decision-making process. This will start an aggressive process in how we want to increase business events and association meetings to Africa.”
The partnership will bring strategic collaboration and will mutually benefit both associations through the exchange of information, creating awareness through affiliation and working together to create new education and training opportunities for the benefit of the business events industry in Africa.
“The work between SAACI and our continental partners is to develop markets and drive association business events to Destination Africa,” says SAACI Chief Executive Officer Glenton De Kock. “A number of our member companies are active on the continent and this initiative coincides with our view of the market and the way we wish to drive partnerships and collaboration in building a strong, sustainable business events industry for our continent with like-minded partners.”
ICCA is the global association leader for the international meetings industry and specialises in the international association meetings sector, offering unrivalled data, education, communication channels, and business development and networking opportunities. Since its establishment in 1963, ICCA represents the world’s top destinations and most experienced suppliers specialised in handling, transporting and accommodating international meetings and events, and comprises of over 1,100 member companies and organisations in almost 100 countries and territories worldwide. For more info, visit www.iccaworld.org
