Last year upwards of 5 800 industry professionals from over 70 countries across the globe attended the show. This represented an overall 17% increase in the number of travel professionals making their way to the city for this event.

Statistics have revealed that a phenomenal $410-million was generated over the three days of business on site last year and all indications are that the potential for this year's show is even more promising.

Cape Town is internationally known as an iconic tourist destination but we have aggressively pushed efforts to build a strong offering for business tourism. Our city has played host to some of the world's most significant business gatherings such as the Mining Indaba, Africa Oil Week, Africa Utility week, the Manufacturing Indaba and many others.

The city's outstanding performance as a business events host city was recognised internationally. This led to Cape Town being named the top City in Africa for Business Tourism by the International Congress and Convention Association for a number of years.

In December 2018, we also received a global accolade for being voted as the World's Leading Festival and Events Destination at the 2018 World Travel Awards.

Events showcase Cape Town as a beautiful host city with a unique offering that is able to deliver events of any size successfully. Most importantly though for us is the fact that these events are critical to promoting job opportunities and developing the local and South African economy to support our communities.

The economic spin-offs from events generate a ripple effect of job creation during and after events. Additionally, the increased visitor spend at our world-famous attractions hold enormous benefits for the city and its residents.

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Large events also help to enrich us and the city at large with knowledge in being a successful host city and creates opportunities for entrepreneurs working on the events to initiate and grow their own businesses. It also affords entrepreneurs the opportunity to network and grow their contact base for future business opportunities.

As a high-performance African business hub that supports innovation and collaboration we are increasing our efforts to attract more business events.

Through our financial support to the Convention Bureau within Wesgro, our trade and investment promotion agency, we are actively promoting Cape Town to the global village to let the world know that we are open for business.

The Convention Bureau, through bidding, focuses on growing and attracting meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions to the Cape.

In the 2017/18 financial year, the Convention Bureau achieved notable success by securing 33 bids with an economic impact of R453 million for the region.

For the current financial year (2018/19) Wesgro's Convention Bureau has secured 30 bids with an estimated economic value double that of the previous year which is close to R1 billion.

I am pleased to announce that Cape Town hosted 52 international association meetings and 34 000 delegates in the 2017/18 financial year.

Cape Town is a forward-looking globally competitive city that offers excellent opportunities for investors with lower operational costs and access to a sizeable market in the rest of South Africa and Africa.

We are committed to supporting all events and business by eliminating red-tape to encourage more investment into our city and to attract more major events.

As the events capital of Africa and number one city in Africa for business events and conferences, we are here to make sure every event succeeds and provides delegates with a world-class experience in business and leisure travel.