Meetings Africa 2023 kicks off in Joburg with focus on SA business resilience

Sandton Convention Centre is abuzz with activity this week, as the South African Tourism’s annual Meetings Africa event kicks off.

The purpose of the event is to promote South Africa as a leading business events destination and to facilitate business interactions and networking opportunities between African suppliers and international buyers.

This year, which sees the 17^th edition of the event, 325 exhibitors from 22 African countries and over 375 from more 60 countries have touched down on SA soil to network and exhibit their offerings.

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South African Tourism Acting Chief Executive Officer, Themba Khumalo said: “The entire global tourism sector has been through a really rough time in the last two years, due to the Covid-19 pandemic but we are back with a renewed energy and we are motivated to build and grow our sector to pre-pandemic levels and beyond.

“Meetings Africa aims to contribute to helping African business events players restart and grow. We want to create opportunities for Africa’s business events sector so that we can all grow back more vital than ever before.

“Our new look represents this new injection of energy and is an emphasis on the importance that we place on connections.”

Energy crisis

With the energy crisis and the grid on the brink of collapse, venture capitalist have been sceptical about making new investments in the country.

According to reports, South Africa’s VC funding activity decreased by almost 47% as of 1 December 2022, from over $1 billion in funding in 2021 to about $500 million in 2022.

And it is a no-brainer as to why. According to a site called SME South Africa, it is estimated that load shedding can cost South Africa over R4 billion a day.

But South Africans are proving their resilience with many showing their innovative ways to keep businesses running, despite the curveballs thrown at them.

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 From harnessing the power of renewables to working around power outage times, they are making a way to stay profitable.

“We remain optimistic for the year ahead both from a business events and leisure tourism perspective and we will continue to use our strategic platforms such as Meetings Africa and Africa’s Travel Indaba in May to promote our country and in so doing contribute to business success and growth,” concluded Khumalo