KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa is not just azure seas and white beaches. It is increasingly drawing business and the MICE sector to its sunny coast, says Sonto Mayise. 

The KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) province of South Africa offers a breath-taking vignette of visuals, ranging from the majestic mountains to the azure sea and white beaches. But it also boasts convention centers that bring travelers from the rest of Africa and beyond. Sonto Mayise, the Acting Chief of the Convention Bureau, says you can have the views, the world-class hotels and state-of-the-art conference centers but they mean nothing without the warmth of the people. She tells us how business tourism is growing in KZN and its coastal city Durban:
What are the main attractions in Durban at this moment?
It comes down to what you see when you land. The beauty of our people in the Zulu Kingdom takes it all. You come in and people smile at you, they are welcoming. It is an attraction of its own. It’s the first-hand experience you give a traveler that will make a lasting impression.
How are you attracting business to KZN? 
I see my mandate in terms of going after events and bringing conferences, meetings and exhibitions to destination Durban and KZN; over and above the mandate of bidding for events, of making sure that you give all the support required, you need to make sure you create relationships and that you maintain and nurture them as well.
What are the trends you have noticed in terms of tourism in general in KZN? 
There is a shift in terms of people knowing about Durban as a [leisure] destination. The ICC in Durban is rated as the leading convention center in Africa. We say as a gateway, as Durban, we have what you need in terms of hosting big events. I’ve picked up that people always come as business tourists and a few months down the line or in a year, they come back as tourists. It is like killing two birds with one stone.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2018/10/01/all-roads-to-the-economic-powerhouse/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: All Roads To The Economic Powerhouse</a>
How does the MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, Exhibitions) industry here compare with Cape Town, Gauteng and the rest of Africa? 
Internationally, people think of Cape Town and Gauteng as ideal provinces to bring business to and often ask where Durban is. We work twice as hard in promoting Durban as a gateway. We are not only promoting Durban but the KZN province as a gateway. We are still in a space where we compete with Cape Town; in instances, it will be leading in conferences, but in terms of delegate numbers, Durban will always be the highest. More and more people are having big conferences in Durban. We can name the World Economic Forum we hosted in 2016, the AIDS conference which was the biggest in 2016 and the BRICS Business Council we just hosted.
What are the top business sectors Durban attracts? 
This is about creating relationships more than anything else. That is part of the mandate for bidding for events. This is confirmation that I am doing something right in the industry. They can see the best that we are doing in KZN and now we are taking the FORBES WOMAN AFRICA Leading Women Summit to Durban [in 2019]. There is much that still needs to be done so we can change and also empower our black people and young women in the MICE industry.
How has the maritime industry developed in recent years? 
The moment you grow the maritime sector, the more you grow the business events sector. We have one of the biggest ports in Durban so when people want an event in the cargo space, they can’t go to Johannesburg or Cape Town. They need to go to Durban and they can only do that if we grow the sector as a maritime destination.

SontoMAyise_GL

Where Conferences Meet The Coast

As Cape Town basked in the glory of being named the World Design Capital 2014, the words ‘design, creativity and innovation’ rang loud at this year’s Design Indaba held in the popular Western Cape city. The annual conference focused on how these elements can positively impact the world.
<div id="attachment_6172" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-6172" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-6172" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Apr-May-060-063-FSH-Design-ind-001-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />Shweta Wahi</div>
It was an early March weekend of fun and discovery for the creatives, artists, designers, hipsters – and ordinary folks – who made their way to the Cape Town International Conference Centre (CTICC). There were 500 exhibitors, from Mikhela Hawker, who makes lampshades from recycled plastic bottles to others, such as Galago, which designs and tailor-makes leather sandals on the spot, in less than 15 minutes.
Part of the event was a three-day conference on creativity, which included talks by some of the world’s top entrepreneurs, creative minds and trendsetters, such as computer scientist Juliana Rotich from non-profit tech company Ushahidi, Ivorian architect Issa Diabaté, and South African photographer David Goldblatt. Tickets sold out quickly and for those who could not attend, the conference was simultaneously broadcast across four South African cities.
<div id="attachment_6160" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-6160" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-6160" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Apr-May-060-063-FSH-Design-ind-007-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />Kathrin Kidger</div>
The Design Indaba is a platform for exhibitors to showcase their products to consumers and industry buyers. Hearing the story behind the conceptualization, design and creation of a product directly from the people who make them, also helps drive sales.
One designer present at the event was Susan Slee, the owner of Maneki and creator of Mannetjie van Staal – meaning ‘little men of steel’ in Afrikaans. This former goldsmith and jewelry designer displayed an ethnic and animal-themed range of cutlery. Her fascination with the simplicity and quirkiness of children’s drawings led to the creation of the van Staal family. Her stainless steel cutlery range features six characters, each with a name and story. The range has since expanded to wood, carved by Zimbabwean artist Nathan Kenias.
<div id="attachment_6167" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-6167" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-6167" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Apr-May-060-063-FSH-Design-ind-014-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />Kathrin Kidger</div>
Yet another participant was Palesa Litha, an emerging designer who studied music before moving on to jewelry design. Her 2014 range, manufactured at an incubator in Rustenburg in the North West province of South Africa, explores the parallels between music and design.
The showcased designers were required to have at least two years’ experience in retail and had to have attended various workshops throughout the year, encompassing everything from costing and retail management to media training. Ten of these designers will now  go on to be a part of the South African collective at international trade fairs in in 2014 and 2015.
The Cape Town Fashion Council (CTFC) booked a R1-million ($93,722) space – the largest at the expo – to showcase 40 emerging and established designers. The CTFC develops entrepreneurship among designers and wants to shift fashion away from being about aesthetics towards embracing a sustainable business model.
<div id="attachment_6170" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-6170" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-6170" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Apr-May-060-063-FSH-Design-ind-018-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />Shweta Wahi</div>
Bryan Ramkilawan, Chief Executive Officer of the CTFC, is working on partnerships across Africa and wants to share intellectual property to get the local and African design industry to where it should be.
South African consumers are starting to pay more attention to local rather than international designs, says Ramkilawan. Three days of sales at the pop-up stores totaled R1.1 million ($103,116), this excluded buyer sales estimated at R2.5 million ($234,327). All the money from the sales went to the designers.
Whether it is fashion, décor, music or art, be sure to head to this year’s World Design Capital. In the words of Ramkilawan, “design is a way of life”.
What design means to them
<h6>Shweta Wahi,</h6>
<h6>Fashion Designer</h6>
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“Design to me, is all about exploring the creative tidbits from my childhood, what&#8217;s in front of me right now, the colors I see, the people I meet, the way a piece of fabric falls on the body, the way it feels &#8211; it’s a matter of perfecting how it feels and looks to express myself and tell my story.”
<h6>David Tlale, Fashion Designer</h6>
<div id="attachment_6164" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-6164" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-6164" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Apr-May-060-063-FSH-Design-ind-011-300x214.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="214" />Fashion designer David Tlale at his Sandton store; Johannesburg, 1 November 2011 &#8211; Photo by Brett Eloff.</div>
“Design means innovation, it means evolving, it means moving forward, it means how you reinterpret what has already been done.”
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<h6>Jeanne van den Heever, Product Designer</h6>
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“It means coming up with something creative, especially if you can add function to that in styling.”
<h6>Palesa Litha, Designer</h6>
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-6165" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Apr-May-060-063-FSH-Design-ind-012-201x300.jpg" alt="" width="201" height="300" />
“It is a different way of thinking. It’s science, it’s philosophy and it’s a way of living.”
<h6>Weaving Cultures</h6>
<h6>Elbé Coetsee brought rural appeal to urban folk at the Design Indaba</h6>
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In the late eighties, Elbé Coetsee and her husband moved to a game farm in rural Limpopo, South Africa. Based 15 kilometers from Botswana and 18 kilometers from Zimbabwe, Coetsee often encountered women who were looking for work even as their husbands toiled away on the roads and farms. Coetsee took up the role of mentor, teaching the women to weave, embroider, bead, make candles and paint. This provided a great platform to exchange cultures.
“It’s a wonderful experience to be able to learn from them and share some of my culture with them. I really think it’s about bridging gaps and having an understanding for another’s culture.”
Soon the orders came rolling in. In 1994, Coetsee registered the company under Mogalakwena Craft Art Development Foundation, named after one of the main rivers in Limpopo; Mogalakwena, meaning fierce crocodile.
Twenty years on, the company has grown to 20 employees who handcraft dainty table linen, placemats, table cloths, serviettes and scatter cushions, distributed and sold throughout South Africa. Although living rural comes with its challenges, such as being in remote areas away from the trappings of the city, not to mention traveling on dust roads, Coetsee says being surrounded and inspired by nature brings her a joy she cannot describe. Coetsee says the Design Indaba allowed her to showcase her work to an audience that would otherwise not have been able to see it. “It was our most successful Design Indaba,” she says.
<h6>Micro-mini</h6>
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-6161" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Apr-May-060-063-FSH-Design-ind-008-300x201.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="201" />
The Design Indaba also got to the heart of objects, and how. The ‘color one’ installation for Mini, by Scholten &amp; Baijings from Amsterdam, dissected the design and composition of a Mini One car. The car manufacturer also displayed the Mini Connected system’s Dynamic Music function, a feature that adjusts the rhythm of music according to the drivers&#8217; driving style. The faster one drives, the louder the music. Attendees at the event could create their own remixes on the Mini dance floor, which was equipped with motion sensors.
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Africa By Design

When she speaks, heads turn and minds change. The entrepreneur from Senegal is on an untiring mission, advocating her own brand of Afro capitalism. She turned an age-old African drink into a fashion accessory and raised millions. In 2013, Magatte Wade is back with another idea to tap into her African roots.
Every year, Wade speaks at more than 20 conferences across Africa. Her message is proving to be a popular turn in a business world hungry for hope. It rarely fails to disappoint those expecting a feisty African woman with a reluctance to mince words.
“You can’t just say it sucks and leave it,” says Wade of the continent’s shortcomings, at the Women of West Africa entrepreneurship conference, in Lagos in June.
“If you can’t do business in your country, leave and go to Rwanda!”
When one delegate complains that banks do not want to lend to start-up companies, Wade shoots back across the hall.
“Banks never want to fund start-ups, get over it. What about the money we, women, spend on weddings, millions ever year. Why can’t we put that money to better use in business?”
Wade, educated in Germany and France, has a good line in homespun homilies mixed with common sense in bite-sized pieces, in an accent that swings between New York, Paris and Dakar. Her critics could say she was glib, but that could be too dismissive of a 37-year-old woman, who has made a lot of money and noise. Whatever people say, Wade certainly holds a room with her strident free-market evangelism.
“I ran into a guy from Kenya the other day, who said his friend had quit her job as a banker to open her own hair salon, after hearing me speak in Nairobi. She is now securing private equity funding and has opened her two hundredth salon,” says Wade.
Wade, in the midst of a tiring day, tells FORBES AFRICA her story in the middle of a lounge in a plush Lagos hotel.
It all began at her grandmother’s knee. Wade grew up in rural Senegal, where her grandmother grew vegetables to sell at the market.
“She simply told me that no one could be better than me,” says Wade.
“Her influence was more important than anything else, it helped me become an entrepreneur. That is why I turned down business degrees at Harvard and Stanford, because they would have ruined me as an entrepreneur. These courses teach you to be a good manager, but not an entrepreneur.”
Wade proved herself early in life—she introduced the world to an age-old Senegalese drink made from the hibiscus flower. At the time, the drink was losing out to canned drinks and was dwindling in Senegal.
“All I care about is that now, in Senegal, people are beginning to understand the value of hibiscus. When I started that company, people laughed at me. It was cruel, really, but they laughed and said, ‘Oh, Magatte, after all your fancy education, you’re now going to make flower drinks,’” she says.
“Africans have a bad attitude towards indigenous resources and products… We have a tendency to believe that anything indigenous to us is not good enough and can’t wait to get rid of it, and that’s how they die off.”
The hibiscus drink was called Adina, which means “life” in Wade’s mother tongue. The slogan “drink no evil” helped it take off and the business accumulated $30 million in capital. It saw the shipping of mountains of hibiscus flowers across the Atlantic to factories in the States. It revived the hibiscus growing business in Senegal, attracted investment from Pepsi and made Wade a fortune.
In 2009, Wade left the company when she believed the venture capitalists were taking the brand in a direction that did not represent her. She formed a new company, Tiossan, which she hopes will do the same for the ethnic beauty products of Senegal that Adina did for the country’s hibiscus drink.
“I’m convinced that if people, like me, don’t do what I do, a generation from now, they will disappear because everyone is busy buying western brands at elite level, and at bottom level, buying knock off products from China. Africans don’t believe in the traditional stuff and indigenous knowledge is dying off,” she says.
This time, once bitten, twice shy, Wade wants to stay in control and has fended off investors. Either way, she accepts that business in Africa is not for sissies.
“I also really try to focus on people who have the right mind-set too. There’s a lot of laziness in the system right now but when you find like-minded people, who are not willing to take any shortcuts, I find those people, rally them towards me and I hope that together, we can begin to form a new metric,” says Wade.
For all of her fire, there is a fragile side to Wade. Tears roll down her face as she talks of times of frustration in Senegal.
“I went to the ports, when I started my company, and I saw the customs guys. I said to them: ‘I’m here—I’m a child of Senegal just like you are. I have all my diplomas and more passports than you can imagine. I don’t have to be here if I don’t want to. But, I have nowhere else to go because this is where I came from and I cannot live happily elsewhere, if this place doesn’t get better—I have tried it. At 25 years old, I bought my first home in Silicon Valley, where I was making tons of money, but how could I live that way when there is so much misery back home? I have nowhere to go, this is the only place I have, so let’s make it right but I cannot do it without you,’” she says.
“I would rather die than not have my dignity. People get so excited about money and material things but I couldn’t really care less.”
Money, business, Africa, women and dignity—Wade’s head is full and her legs are on the march. Whatever she says next is likely to be interesting and could change your life.

Young, Gifted  And Firing Back

The re-election of Jacob Zuma to lead the governing party of the most powerful economy on the African continent, South Africa, was never a case of ‘if’, instead it was a case of by how big a margin he would beat his reluctant challenger, Kgalema Motlanthe. What was a puzzling paradox for many opinion makers though, was how Zuma got more than 70% of the vote when the African National Congress (ANC) gathered for its elective conference in Mangaung on December 16-20.
Were those 4,500 voting delegates so dumb and ignorant? Could they have been bought or lulled to ignore the stuff that filled newspaper columns, radio and television programs and social networks? How on earth did they miss the groundswell of indignation towards their supposedly highly unpopular and bungling president? In which South Africa did those delegates live, that they could not see what the political analysts, commentators, journalists and opposition politicians saw?
Part of the problem is the fact that the ANC still follows an archaic system of electing its leaders. No ANC leader gets to openly contest, so that they could tell why they believe they deserve the top position. As a result, s/he who controls the levers of power during party election time gets to have an upper hand and, depending on how skillful or cunning they may or may not be, the ANC leadership race is always for them to lose. This is only a small part of the problem. Those chosen become the country’s leaders by virtue of the party’s domination of the political landscape. The bigger problem has everything to do with what has become of the over 51 million people that constitute the population of South Africa.
Greed, self-centeredness and dishonesty have become only some of the defining characteristics of South Africans as wealth accumulation, getting plum positions or ensuring they keep their jobs becomes more important than anything else. In the process they’ve become meek and timid, in many ways a defeated people, blaming everything and everybody other than themselves for crises they find ourselves in. They tend to let their attitudes and emotions, prejudices and prescriptions, stand in the way of appreciating the best that there is.
Take the media and political analysts’ reaction to the election of Cyril Ramaphosa as ANC deputy president. When it became apparent that the billionaire businessman was to become the ANC’s number two, pages of newspapers and magazines, as well as hours of airtime were dedicated to full-blown ‘analysis’ of what he is going to do.
While there’s nothing wrong with someone wishing to communicate their wishes on how the ANC can best utilize Ramaphosa; the most interesting aspect of ‘Cyrilmania’ has been how glibly many have come to pronounce it, without any due regard to both the history of his re-emergence and the inner workings of the ANC.
Business and the elite media’s warmth to Ramaphosa seems to have everything to do with the fact that he represents that acceptable, affable face of the ANC—the one that fits the stereotypical image of a suave, sophisticated, articulate leader who will not embarrass. He is the welcome opposite to the polygamist country bumpkin they see in Zuma.
Almost without questioning, business and rest of the elite seem to think that finally, there’ll be a clever black at ANC headquarters where the party’s top six officials meet every Monday. Ramaphosa, the thinking seems to go, will tell Zuma what no one has hitherto had the guts to tell the 70-year-old struggle veteran about such things as inspiring investor confidence or catering to the sophisticated voter.
The truth is that not only is Ramaphosa nothing more than a benefactor of Zuma’s generosity, he is also a crowning success of his deft strategy. What is forgotten is that Zuma preferred to keep Motlanthe and that it was only after Motlanthe spurned the effort, choosing to stand against Zuma instead, that Ramaphosa came into the picture.
But simply because Ramaphosa was second choice does not mean that he cannot achieve the things that many now think he will be best-placed to accomplish. That’s not to say that Zuma is now suddenly in a mood, through Ramaphosa, to pacify constituencies he considers disdainful and unreservedly hostile. Correctly in some instances, incorrectly in others, Zuma’s comments often suggest a firm belief that most media are hell bent to destroy or undermine him.
What’s habitually forgotten is that only one man has a final say in the ANC and that’s its president. Given the way the ANC operates, the more firmly that person is in charge, as Zuma is now, the more people like Ramaphosa will have little option but to tow the line. The only time Ramaphosa will get reprieve, is if Zuma decides to anoint him. That’s if Zuma won’t seek a third term as ANC president.
In interviews with both men, Zuma insisted that he “definitely won’t seek a third term”. He did not wait for me to point out that after his election in 2007, he said he would serve only one term. Ramaphosa would not be drawn into whether he was keen on the top position. For now its “outside of my wish and imagination,” he told me. When I asked what he thought about the attitude of business towards the ANC, he replied: “The business community has not stepped up to the plate. It has held back”.
In five years’ time Ramaphosa will have the option to challenge Zuma, in the same way Zuma challenged Mbeki in 2007 and won, and Motlanthe challenged Zuma and lost.
While post-apartheid ANC leaders contested positions, often fiercely; they hardly represented fundamentally distinct visions of the ANC and the country.
One is tempted to conclude that ‘Cyrilmania’ is a clumsy, if not hopelessly inadequate effort, largely by those who disapprove of Zuma’s rule. As history has proven, the problem with that practice is that it almost always guarantees that such a move won’t be taken seriously, for ANC leaders don’t take kindly to being told by the media.
Another problem with ‘the government must do this, must do that’ tendency of South Africans is that it also serves to hide the inefficiencies of others who have the power and resources that can move the nation forward, like the country’s business and worker leadership.
Sick and tired, South Africa’s stubborn and resilient workers showed up the country’s lack of, not only political, but also business and labor leadership. Though rudderless, the workers successfully organized a massive wave of sporadic, unprotected, often violent and suicidal strikes. Although the workers lost wages and many lose jobs in the aftermath, they made their point. The ultimate loser, though, is the country’s economy.
Has organized business and labor taken the responsibility they always demand of government? No.
Hopefully South Africans will learn—and that includes the Ramaphosa fan club, which holds influential positions in the media and business—that it takes a lot more to exert real influence in their political economy and to build a nation that will be the envy of the continent. Creating heroes and villains is not the answer but a sure way to failure and disappointment.
Tempting as it might be for everyone to engage in the sport of exposing every wrong about him and blaming Zuma for all of South Africa’s ills, he is definitely not the root cause and the delegates to the ANC conference knew that. Blameless, yes, but he is at best a symbol of what is manifestly wrong with South Africans as a whole.
If there’s a lesson that history should have taught South Africans in the past 18 years of democracy, it should be that their nation stands to gain a lot more if they put themselves to the very test they put their leaders to. Everybody—including business, civil society, labor, opposition politicians, journalists, commentators and analysts—should wake up to the reality that they need to use their energies and the platforms they each have, a little more wisely and creatively. There’s nothing wrong with engaging, a lot more rigorously, but also truthfully.

Tag: Conference

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

Where Conferences Meet The Coast

Africa By Design

Young, Gifted And Firing Back

Mangaung Unpacked