SA Tourism will introduce a new system at this year’s Indaba to tackle the issue of missed appointments.

Speaking at a Gauteng briefing session on Indaba, Nitta Sukha, Executive Project Manager at SA Tourism said ‘meeting police’ would help address missed appointments.

Staff wearing Business Matchmaking T-shirts will be on hand so that exhibitors can inform them of missed appointments. If a buyer has not arrived for an appointment, an exhibitor can inform the Business Matchmaking team who will find out where the buyer is, and why he/she has not turned up, and possibly reschedule the meeting.

Exhibitors will also receive SMSs five minutes before an appointment as a reminder. Should a buyer not arrive five minutes after the meeting time commences, they can respond to the SMS with the word ‘Missed’ and the team will investigate the matter.

Exhibitors are encouraged to inform the Business Matchmaking team of missed appointments while at Indaba and not once the show has ended. Exhibitors attending the briefing were also taken through an interactive demonstration of how to effectively use the online diary matchmaking system to access both hosted and non-hosted buyers.