Cape Town - Cape Town has beaten New York to top the list of long-haul destinations favoured by UK-based events agencies.
The City's topping of the charts as the favourite destination underscores Cape Town's International Convention Centre's (ICC) emergence as a convention centre of choice for conference groups.
Delighted Cape Town Mayor Helen Zille on Wednesday congratulated the ICC for having played a major role in making this happen.
"I would also like to congratulate the many private convention facilities around Cape Town for their contribution to our City's success."
Mayor Zille said the vision was for Cape Town to become a world class city.
"This achievement shows that we are well on our way. Business tourism has also been identified as a key growth area for our economy.
"We must continue to improve our services in this area, this is one of the ways we can continue to promote job creating economic growth that will create more opportunities for all the people of Cape Town," she said.
Mansoor Mohamed, the City's Executive Director for Economic, Social Development and Tourism, said it was important to note that Cape Town has beaten some very popular Middle Eastern and European destinations, including Dubai and Paris.
"This illustrates that Cape Town's strengths are the natural beauty and arts and cultural diversity.
"Natural beauty and cultural diversity were key criteria used in the survey. Other criteria included cuisine and value for money," said Mr Mohamed.
The Cape Town Convention Centre includes two raked fixed-seating auditoria, accommodating 1 500 and 600 people respectively.
It also consists of 33 break-out rooms adjoining the auditoria and 20 meeting rooms that can be configured to different sizes.
Cape Town has recently been awarded another great accolade for the best city in the African and Middle Eastern regions by the prestigious Travel and Magazine in New York, USA.
It beat a host of cities to be ranked tenth in the "Best City in the World" category at the Travel and Leisure World's Best Awards 2007, Monday.
Cape Town is famed for its renowned flat-topped Table Mountain, which rises to 1 086 metres at its highest point, and the area's rich mix of biodiversity and Fauna and Flora including some 8 500 endemic flowering plant species.
The city, which was evaluated according to criteria such as natural beauty and cultural diversity, cuisine and value for money, has been ranked as number one on the Africa and Middle East region and in the top ten best tourist destinations since 2004. - BuaNews
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