THE BestCities Client Imbizo took place earlier this month, bringing representatives, managers and sales officials from the BestCities Global Alliance of Convention Bureaux together for the annual sales and management meeting in Cape Town.

The event, which was hosted by the Cape Town and Western Cape Convention Bureau (Cape Town Routes Unlimited), gave sales representatives of the alliance a platform to sell their respective destination’s convention offerings to key association buyers and look at ways of improving business performance with a specific focus on increasing the number of association meetings and incentives to each of the member cities.

Global membership of the alliance comprises leading meetings and incentive destinations, including Cape Town, Copenhagen, Dubai, Edinburgh, Melbourne, San Juan, Singapore and Vancouver.

Partners of the alliance agreed to pool their marketing intelligence and share client information across the eight cities to secure rotational meetings within the alliance and to support the individual marketing efforts of member bureaux with consequent benefits to the local business tourism industry.

CEO of Cape Town Routes Unlimited, Calvyn Gilfellan, said:  “We are proud of the destination’s increasing innovative and fresh incentive offerings that provide enhanced value for our visitors. Despite a persistent depressed economic climate, in Cape Town and the Western Cape we are committed to strengthening our corporate hospitality – we have a lot of energy and promise to keep conference delegates on their toes!”

As a destination, Cape Town performed well with the clients with four strong leads that will hopefully yield secured conferences in the destination over the next five years.