You probably wouldn’t know it, but South Africa has just hosted the 13th International Congress on Medical Informatics. (A huge and complicated field that aims to deliver better health care by smoothing the connections between science, data collection, and technology. The world body is known as IMIA – the International Medical Informatics Association).

This was a big thing for South Africa – and Africa as a whole – because it was the first time MEDINFO was held on the continent; and, as always with events of this nature, it meant serious business for Cape Town.

Nina Freysen-Pretorius, CEO of The Conference Company – which managed the event on behalf of the local organising committee (SAHIA – the South African Health Informatics Association) said during the conference that “the majority of the thousand plus delegates attending are international, and only a small percentage are from South Africa.”

In fact, they came from more than 80 countries (including 10 African nations) – but, what’s interesting from a tourism perspective, is how they went about booking their accommodation.

“A lot of them registered and paid early on, but not many took up the conference accommodation,” said Ms. Freysen-Pretorius – although she noted that they did eventually stay at the official hotels… once they’d reduced their rates.

But was this a result of perceptions created during the World Cup (many of us worried – and still do worry – that South Africa would suffer a hangover as a result of prices advertised during the footie-fest) – or was it because of the recession?

“I think it’s an international trend for people to book at the last minute.

“People are becoming more IT savvy: they want to get specials at the last minute. They’re using the conference web site to look at the official hotels, but then going on and searching for specials and the best rate.

“I know from my involvement with ICCA (the International Conferences And Conventions Association) that this is an international trend – other colleagues are also finding this.

“So what this says to us – and I’m quite a lobbyist for this – is that we need to look differently at how we offer our accommodation. Potentially, with registration we’re going to have to say ‘here are some special rooms at a lower price – but if you book your accommodation later, it will be more expensive.’

“Currently it’s the other way around.”

Ms. Freysen-Pretorius said that the hotels – like the airlines – should be making the lower-cost rooms available to the PCOs: “but they’re just giving us one rate.

“Going forward, we’re going to have to look at yield management – and how we adapt to market trends, and particularly how we’re going to adapt to internet trends,” she said.

Which makes sense – after all, everyone knows that one of the best ways of keeping travel costs down is to book your flights well in advance, and the nature of conferences being what they are, most delegates do just that: register months or even years in advance. Mightn’t they then get advantages for booking accommodation early, too?

Think about this in light of The Conference Company’s agenda for the next year or two. Amongst others, it’ll be hosting the International Confederation of Midwives at the ICC in Durban in June 2011. “We’re looking at about 3,000 delegates: to date we’ve already received 1,0031 abstracts – which is normally indicative of the number of people who’ll attend – and 600 delegates have already registered and paid.”

There’s also the World Mental Health Congress (for about 800 delegates in Cape Town during October 2011), and then – also in October 2011 – Disabled Peoples’ International’s 8th World Assembly in Durban.

“We’re looking at between 1,500 and 2,00 delegates – and the concern is that between 300 and 500 of them will be in wheelchairs.” But, said Ms. Freysen-Pretorius, “As you know, there’s a load limit of four wheelchairs on any international flight – so we’re hoping to work closely with South African Airways to make sure those potential delegates can get here.” (Which, as she said, “is important, because hosting something as big as that can potentially open accessible tourism – which we’re not really that good at that in our country.”And by the way – check out my video about Derek Kershaw, who’s confined to a wheelchair, and built himself an airplane – below.)

So: with all these conferences coming up, and with delegates becoming more internet savvy by the day – it makes sense to question whether your yield management strategy really is the right one.

Heads Up

  • Greenways Hotel delivers the vegetarian goods – here
  • A recommendation: Delphinus Health Spa and Accommodation – here
  • Another book for your guest library: Kingsley Holgate’s Afrika – Dispatches from the Outside Edge – here
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