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Cruise News for the Corporate Travel Professional

December 2010 Edition

SITE Global's 2010 International Conference.

The Conference was held in Cape Town, South Africa immediately after the EIBTM Show with a number of attendees making the long trip down as well as many other attendees flying in from all over the world.

Attendance was in my mind excellent with over 300 travel executives attending many had traveled very long distances to be in Cape Town, I met executives from as far afield as Russia, Finland, Norway, the United States of America, Australia and a mix of countries from just about every continent.

The host hotel – The Westin Arabella Quay was well located being a virtual annex to the new Cape Town Conference Center so even those early morning starts to attend the various education sessions was not too much of a hardship.

The hosts had worked very hard to offer a mix of Local and International entertainment and this concept was carried onto the various party themes even down to the food served at the various functions.

Needless to say there was the usual hard core of attendees / SITE members and executives one meets at all the various SITE functions so it very nice to meet many SITE members from areas that I rarely have any business dealings with and our net working sessions where very fruitful.

The hosts had arranged a choice of three free tours to show of the Cape Town area and these where well attended. I chose to do the city / Table Mountain tour and was not disappointed when our guide turned out to be very knowledge and informative. The cable car ride to the top of Table Mountain was an experience as the day proved to be extremely windy which required the cable cars to be ballasted with water to prevent them swinging in the wind. An interesting point about the cars where their revolving floors which turned one full rotation between the base and the top of the ride.

We had barely made it to the top and as the wind was extremely cold decided to partake of a hot chocolate in the Cafe located adjacent to the cable car station, when a horn was sounded to announce that the cable car was soon going to have to close due to bad weather. Not wanting to have to walk down we immediately returned to the upper station and where soon on our way back down. In the meantime the famous “table cloth” cloud had enveloped the mountain and was falling over the edge, billowing out to eventually disperse in the warmer are. From the ground it did indeed look like a white table cloth had settled over the mountains top. From the city side of the mountain Table Mountain does look like it has a large flat plateau – the famous table top, but from the Camp Bay side the view of the top is quite different looking much like any other mountainous range being broken up by gullies and peaks, the famous “Twelve Apostles” inaccurately named in fact as there are eighteen peaks in all.

Our stay in Cape Town was pleasant but the action was in fact at the V&A Waterfront, this creative use of the old and mostly abandoned old port area has turned out to to be the major shopping and entertainment area for the city. It covers a vast area and has several world class hotels as well as shopping malls with stores catering to clients ranging from the very wealthy to the average shopper. There is also a huge choice of restaurants of all genres and prices as well as bars and entertainment complexes.

Dining out is quite a treat in South Africa, there are many choices of food, lots of game on the menu, excellent fish and excellent beef and lamb. Wines from the various wine regions, many of them just adjacent to Cape Town provide an amazing choice of both styles and quality all at a seemingly ridiculously cheap price.

Because of the long distances many of the SITE attendees had traveled to be in Cape Town for the Conference a large number of them had arranged either pre or post trips with trips to various game parks in the south proving to be a popular choice.

I traveled with my wife and we also took a pre-convention trip along the “Garden Route” to just north of Port Elizabeth where we spent two days at the Amakhali Game Preserve which proved to the be the highlight of our trip. All in all we enjoyed our time in South Africa although we had concerns for personal safety in some areas.

The conference was in my mind worth the time, effort and expense to attend, I am a firm believer that the recognition and respect one gets from mingling with our peers at events like this enhances our professional reputation and the recognition of our company in our industry thereby creating a feeling of confidence that we can deliver a top rate experience for our clients programs.

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