Let's Meet Africa
and Do Business
Dirk Elzinga
The Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) has gone from strength to strength since it opened three years ago. While both the venue and its MD have received international honours, it is perhaps an even greater testament to the venture's success that it is now almost impossible to imagine business tourism in Cape Town without the CTICC. Andrew Starke spoke to Dirk Elzinga, MD of the CTICC, about the convention centre's successes and future.
Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands has appointed Dirk Elzinga, MD of the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC), a Knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau in recognition of his work as a Dutch citizen in South Africa.
Aside from overseeing the highly successful establishment of the CTICC in the city, Elzinga is involved with a number of projects that promote the socio-economic upliftment of disadvantaged South Africans.
The order, which is awarded annually on Queen's Day - the Netherlands' National Day - to a number of Dutch citizens globally, was presented to Elzinga by Dutch Consul-General, Rob Bosscher.
"The Order of Orange-Nassau is conferred on people who have rendered outstanding service to their community for a considerable period of time, and they are often people who carry out voluntary work for all manner of civil society organizations," Bosscher explained.
"We felt that Mr Elzinga deserved this honour because of his outstanding work here in Cape Town in creating sustained job and upliftment opportunities, and his subsequent role in strengthening the ties between our two countries."
For his part, Elzinga said he was amazed that people in his homeland continued to follow his career. "It was completely unexpected, and a very humbling experience to realize that the royal family is even aware of my work."
Elzinga has been in South Africa since 2000 when he arrived to help set-up of the CTICC. Elzinga was seconded by the Amsterdam-based RAI Group, for which he has worked for 25 years. RAI has operated the CTICC since it opened in 2003.
Helen Zille, the Mayor of Cape Town, also extended her congratulations on behalf of the City of Cape Town to Elzinga. "I'm glad that Dirk's valuable contributions both here and abroad are being recognised," she said. "By bringing his skills to our city he has helped make the CTICC the internationally-recognised establishment that it is today. The convention centre has become a model of how we would like all major City projects to be run."
It has been three years since the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) flung its doors open to the world and, while still establishing itself amongst the global conferencing fraternity, the infant has enjoyed steady growth. Over 100 international conferences have been held at the CTICC since its inception, comfortably ahead of the 30 per year initially targeted.
Another encouraging sign, according to MD Dirk Elzinga, is that the average number of international delegates attending conferences has risen from 500 to 650, a telling statistic when one considers that the average overseas delegate spends R2 400 per day while in Cape Town. He also points out that the venue has been well provided for with 3 500 of the Cape Peninsula's 12 500 hotel rooms within walking distance of the CTICC.
"It has been three years now and I think it is fair to say that we have everything running like clockwork," said Elzinga. "The RAI Group has over 100 years of experience, a great deal of accumulated knowledge in operating this sort of facility, and we are also starting to see the benefits of the vigorous marketing campaign that we ran in 2003."
The time between a large international association deciding on a city to host its conference and the conference actually being hosted can be over five years and this time-lag is often overlooked by the public. This makes the CTICC's successes all the more remarkable as some of the conferences booked when the venue first opened have yet to be hosted.
Elzinga dismissed recent allegations that the CTICC was losing money as inaccurate, pointing out that the venture is currently running at an operational profit. The convention centre building appears to have become a pawn in the ongoing dispute between the Democratic Alliance controlled City of Cape Town and Premier Ebrahim
Rasool's ANC provincial cabinet. Despite the dispute, both sides agreed that the CTICC had done an outstanding job in attracting overseas visitors since its inception.
According to an annual overview of global congress statistics published by the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA), Cape Town has, since the opening of the CTICC, consistently held its position as one of the top 50 global convention destinations. In 2004, the city was ranked 47th and moved up to the 30th position in 2005.
"Dirk has played a pivotal role in drawing the international meetings industry's focus to Cape Town and the CTICC. Under his leadership he has successfully positioned the city as a firm favourite among the world's top meetings destinations," says Denis Skeate, acting chairman and long-standing board member of Convenco, which is the holding company of the CTICC. The city has a 50,3% share in Convenco, the provincial government 25,1% and SunWest 24,6%.
While Elzinga has reservations about Cape Town ever being able to crack the top 10 and compete with the real conferencing heavyweights, he sees no reason why the CTICC shouldn't hold a regular spot in the top 20.
In 2004, its first full year of operation, the CTICC hosted 30 international conferences with a further 47 of these events being hosted over 2005. This increase brought an estimated 70 000 extra people to Cape Town in the CTICC's second year. The CTICC is expected to contribute R10.4-billion to South Africa's GDP over the next five years.
"Realistically Cape Town is probably too remote to ever become one of the major conference cities," said Elzinga. "Out of about 9 000 international associations based mainly in the US and Europe, only about half host their conferences all over the world and once you have hosted them once you usually don't see them again for many years."
For the moment it appears that the CTICC will look to host about 35 - 40 international conferences a year, striking a balance between new and repeat business and raising the average number of delegates per conference. This may increase if the venue is enlarged and extended in coming years as appears likely.
Because the CTICC has been more successful than anticipated, the operational team has been able to exceed its original promise of delivering new direct and indirect jobs. The facility has 92 permanent staff and a further 800 temporary staff such as waiters, cleaners and bar staff depending on the size of the conference.
CTICC figures also show that 2 688 jobs were created during the construction of the centre between 2001 and 2003. The first year of operation saw 2 203 direct jobs created for suppliers and this number increased to 2 347 over the course of 2005.
However the CTICC is likely to have its staffing structures closely examined as it hosts a number of large conferences between now and the end of the year. The venue will play host to 4 000 delegates for the International Urology Congress in November; and 10 000 delegates for the International Diabetes Federation during the first week of December, the largest conference yet held at the CTICC. The latter will demand 650 temporary staff alone.
"Every year Dirk and his team produce excellent results which set a solid base for the CTICC's expansion plans," said Skeate. "As more and larger international events turn to Cape Town, there is a growing need to look at meeting the expanding demands on the center."
An additional 1 200 m2 of exhibition space is already under construction on the centre's east side as part of a new 15-storey office tower. Negotiations are also underway between the centre, provincial government and the Department of Public Works to acquire Customs House, a nearby government building, to meet the demand of an additional 10,000m2 of space.
Africa currently receives just over 3% of this business with South Africa playing host to over two-thirds of international conferences in Africa. In this respect it would appear that cities, regions and even countries in Africa need to present a united front to the global business and academic worlds as studies show that the spin-offs from business tourism are often felt across a wider spectrum of industries then from leisure travellers.
Dirk Elzinga is opening the first exhibition about doing business in Africa; Let's meet Africa and Do Business in Eindhoven on 7 November 2008. Visitors of this unique exhibition have the opportunity to meet Dirk Elzinga in person and ask him questions about the need for platforms such as Let's meet Africa and Do Business to bring business opportunities in Africa under the attention of thousands of business people all over the world.
More information about other speakers during the exhibition you will find here.