ICCA and SAACI announce extended partnership at Meetings Africa

The International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) and the Southern African Association for the Conference Industry (SAACI) have entered a new partnership. The news was announced at the annual Meetings Africa show in Sandton, Johannesburg, South Africa. ICCA has designed a programme for strategic collaboration with a small number of organisations which have a clear interest in developing long-term business relations with ICCA’s Association Community and the broad mass of ICCA membership, like SAACI. The objective is to exchange information and cross-promotion of both associations. ICCA CEO, Senthil Gopinath said: “The African meetings industry is very keen on building the knowledge economy and we make every effort to support the African meetings industry and its objective to also achieve societal development through meetings. ICCA has been stressing the importance of collaboration amongst the African meetings industry and initiating joint efforts with SAACI to achieve such objectives… I am delighted to welcome this extended collaboration and convinced it will help grow ICCA’s supplier and association community in the African region.” Kim Roberts, SAACI National Chairperson explains: “We are extremely pleased to conclude this partnership… We are looking forward to the exchange of critical information on events held across the continent which will allow for sharing of crucial information to the bidding process for future events such as contacts, budgets, and the decision-making process. This will start an aggressive process in how we want to increase business events and association meetings to Africa.” Photo shows, L-R: SAACI CEO Glenton De Kock, SAACI National Chairperson Kim Roberts and ICCA Regional Director (Africa) Esmare Steinhofel