T he CTICC celebrated its 15th anniver sary at the end of June Cape Town s mayor Patricia de Lille took the op portunity to highlight the venue s im portance Cape Town has been continuous ly ranked the number one destination for in ternational conferences in Africa in recent years she emphasised There is no doubt that the CTICC has made a major contribu tion to this impressive ranking The exhibi tion and convention centre contributes bil lions of rands a year to South Africa s GDP Even more important than that she believes is the fact that it contributes to poverty alle viation by providing much needed jobs It is for this reason that the city as the majority shareholder invested R550 million 32 mil lion euros in the construction of CTICC 2 as a sign of our confidence in the CTICC s fu ture argued Patricia de Lille There is now 10 000 square metres of additional multi pur pose exhibition and conference space The venue certainly has an impressive record In the last 15 years almost 7 000 events have been staged at the Cape Town International Conference Centre 557 of them international An estimated 8 million visitors have come through the doors of the CTICC since 2003 One particularly high profile event was the 2010 FIFA World Cup final draw The CTICC has also attracted a great deal of international attention through the conventions it has hosted 12 years ago for example the 19th World Diabetes Confer ence attracted a record attendance of around 12 300 delegates In 2020 this record is likely to be broken 15 000 delegates are expected in Cape Town for the World Ophthalmology Conference The centre has been a key driv er of the region s knowledge economy em phasised CTICC CEO Julie May Ellingson Over the last 15 years the CTICC has re mained committed not only to maintaining and increasing our economic footprint we also remain steadfast in our commitment to develop our staff as leaders in their fields through training and development pro grammes Ellingson sees the recently completed ex tension to the Cape Town International Con vention Centre as an engine of growth She is optimistic that it will bolster the economy create more jobs and bring in even higher numbers of business tourists Thanks to the additional capacity existing events will have room to grow AfricaCom Africa s largest IT event attended by 14 000 is evidence of this The 21st AfricaCom is taking place in mid November Exhibitions conventions and other events can be staged concurrently in the two buildings The very first conference held at CTICC 2 the Annual Congress of the South African Council of Shopping Centres in September 2017 provided a good example of this improved functionality A separate conference attended by over 1 000 research scientists was held at the same time in CTICC 1 www cticc co za PB 34 TradeFairs Internation al 3 2018 INTERNATIONAL SOUTH AFRICA Confidence in the future The Cape Town International Convention Centre CTICC has been open for a decade and a half now which is an oppor tunity to look not only back but also forward into the future Allerbeste Stimmung bei der Kiddies Party im Juni anlässlich des 15 jährigen Jubiläums des CTICC in Kapstadt Great atmosphere at the Kiddies Party last June to mark the 15th anniversary of the CTICC in Cape Town Ph ot o C TI CC

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