This morning I had the privilege to attend the Business Traveller Breakfast at the Michelangelo Hotel at Nelson Mandela Square in Sandton. First off hats off to the hotel it is the first time I have been through there and it is beautiful. It is pristine and a pleasure to be in. Going on with the breakfast, it was hosted by the brilliant Michale Jackson, I have heard him speak on a few occasions and again he out did himself this time with his wit and charm. Now down to the serious business on what the breakfast was about. The breakfast focused on the 2010 World cup. I have heard some stats a while ago from a talk by Gary Bailie at the eTravel open forum in 2008, so I had some idea about the enormity of the event. This however was elaborated on by the speakers this morning. Here are some points I picked up as highlights of this mornings break fast I would like to share with you:
Graham Wood: Over 80% of our inventory for Southern Sun between 11 June and 11 July 2010 is contracted to FIFA.
Fouad Caunhye: A large portion of our flights have been allocated to use by FIFA.
Adam Brown: We are expecting 450 000 international visitors for the FIFA world cup excluding SA and Africa
Tebogo Mekgoe: Durban airport is about 75% bigger than the current airport at this stage which means it is better than what we currently have even if it is not finished in time.
(These points are what I understood, they are not a direct transcript of what was said)
Wow with this happening next year we are surely in for a huge event! There are over 3 million tickets available for the event next year. Over 220 000 tickets have already been snapped up by foreign fans even before the final draw on 04 December 2010. That been said it was noted that *team tickets* that will be put into circulation have already been over subscribed. Another key point I would like to touch on that was brought up, next year will be different it will be African and it will be unique, one reason is that when the world cup was in Germany people could attend the world cup for a 1 night stay. People coming to WC 2010 will be coming for up to 10 days at a time and some for the whole event. This is great!
For the business traveller here is the crux, as it was said this morning do not plan weekend conference or a week long conference in another city for 150 delegates during the WC month next year. There is very little space at the inn and you can be sure that when there is demand and less supply prices will go up. That been said nothing is stopping you from having local conference in your local city as these conference venues will generally be available.
Emirates has capacity to bring in over 65 000 travellers to SA in the WC month, that will leave over 200 000 travellers to other airlines. When it comes to supply and demand and pricing that is a whole new blog on its own so watch this space.
