A ground-breaking new partnership has been formed between the Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI) and the African Bureau of Conventions.

The convergence of strategic partners aims to ensure maximum economic growth of Johannesburg, as well as enhanced membership opportunities to local and regional businesses.

The JCCI undertook an aggressive marketing strategy during the FIFA 2010 World Cup, inviting members from over 10,000 International Chambers to visit Johannesburg during the World Cup. This also afforded the opportunity to have business sector meetings, facilitated by the JCCI.

This has yielded an overwhelming post World Cup reaction, with a large number of business tourism leads received by the JCCI from international businesses to make South Africa and Johannesburg their next destination to conduct business and host their international conventions and meetings.

JCCI identified a need to approach experts in this field, with the objective of securing these conventions and meetings for the destination, and partnered in a joint venture with the African Bureau of Conventions.

This partnership is a first for South Africa and indeed Africa, in that the African Bureau of Conventions will serve as a broker or an official point of contact for international and national incoming conventions.

The differentiating factor will be that the new structure, with the support of business leads received through the JCCI, and other strategic partners, will be responsible for the overall bidding strategy for conventions, incentives and exhibitions for the destination and product owners.

(World-class conferencing facilities at the Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg)

African Bureau of Conventions
Successfully bidding to host some the many highly demanding yet lucrative International conferences and events in the region requires having world-class facilities and services, and aligning the region’s superb reactions with the bidder’s specific requirements.

Given that Africa competes against Europe, North America, Asia and every other region across the globe, this often requires a balance of locality, service and value for money in persuading international decision makers to choose Southern Africa and Africa as the event destination of choice for their prestige events.

Putting Southern Africa’s and Africa’s ‘best foot forward’ in international bid submission presents regional stakeholders the best possible hope and opportunity of bringing more lucrative international business into the region, rather than if each individual entity had to submit independent competitive bids from the region.

The organisation’s skills in interpreting international bid requirements, leveraging its strong relationships with many local professional associations and aligning these with the very best of Southern Africa’s and Africa’s conferencing, event facilities and services in a professional and efficient manner will make the most efficient case for attracting international conference and event business into the region.

(Soccer City, Johannesburg - one of the big stars of the FIFA 2010 World Cup)

Strategic Partners
In addition, the African Bureau of Conventions has another strategic partner, the Foundation for Professional Development (FPD) Conferences and Special Events.

FPD Conferences and Special Events organizes top level conferences that shape public perception on important health related, social and economic issues. It provides a macro conference and events management service with skilled and experienced staff working on state-of-the-art project management systems.

FPD, in association with the IAS and Dira Sengwe, brought the International AIDS Conference to Durban South Africa in 2000. With 13,000 delegates, it was the first macro event ever held in Africa. Since 2000, it has organised many macro conferences including the SA AIDS Conference series, the 8th World Congress on Safety Promotion and Injury Prevention 2006, the SA TB Conference Series, The ISES Solar World Congress 2009, plus many more.

(Joburg - the city of gold)

The African Bureau of Conventions thought that it was essential to have a strategic partner who was an expert in the organisation and management of large scale association and corporate conferences.

The synergy between FPD Conferences, the JCCI, and the African Bureau of Conventions combines the strengths of all organisations, resulting in a winning partnership that can only go from strength to strength. This partnership is the next step in attracting and securing successful major conferences to the shores of Africa.