Mother city closes in on top conference cities

CAPE Town has moved up 21 positions to become the world's 30th most desirable convention destination in the latest International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) list. Cape Metro Tourism's (CMT) ceo, Rick Taylor said the Convention Bureau, which is a unit of CMT, had received a vast increase in the number of enquiries about hosting conventions in the city. "Our aim is to get Cape Town into the top 10 on the ICCA's list by 2005. Our rise from 51 to 30 in the last year puts us well on the way to achieving this ambitious goal,"he said. According to Taylor, the conventions market in South Africa is currently worth more than R8bn. He concluded that the completion of the Cape Town International Convention Centre in 2003 would also boost the city's plans to become a leading convention player globally. (Miguel de Sousa)