When the doors of the Sandton Convention Centre closed behind the last delegate at Meetings Africa 2013 a few weeks ago, 2 884 delegates had come through the turnstiles. Among them was the Flow team.
Our job was to document and share, with the rest of the world, all the happenings at Africa’s largest business tourism event. The team was tasked with sharing information across various social media platforms, most notably Facebook and Twitter.
Within hours we had connected hundreds of followers on the newly developed Meetings Africa Facebook and Twitter accounts.
We were at the Sandton Convention Centre way before the masses of buyers and delegates from India, the United States and Canada, China, Brazil, Germany, Russia, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Hungary, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan, the Philippines, Poland, Spain, Sweden, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and Ukraine had arrived.
We watched the exhibition hall being transformed to accommodate the buyers and delegates who would attend. When the delegates arrived we were among the first to greet them and talk about what they had to offer, and their expectations.
Thulani Nzima, South African Tourism CEO, said that 78% of buyers at Meetings Africa 2013 had attended the event for the first time.
“It was such a privilege to work at Meetings Africa this year alongside such fantabulous (yes, fantabulous) Flowstars. Melanie Feris met hosted buyers, spoke with product owners and engaged visitors to find out exactly what they enjoyed about the Meetings Africa experience.
“Zintle Mtyeku and I recorded video shorts from African destination marketing organisations to find out what unique experience business travellers could expect when visiting the country. Together our trio worked magic and delivered great value to the client,” says Kate Rau, Flow media developer.