When non-digital business events slowly start coming back into play, small, medium and micro enterprises (SMME) in this sector will find themselves competing directly with the larger players for even the smaller events as the portion of the pie will have considerably shrunk post-COVID-19 fallout.
This will therefore drive the SMME sector – which makes up the vast majority of suppliers in South Africa’s business events and MICE industry – to drastically change their business models and focus on their unique strengths.
One of these was price competitiveness, said Septi Bukula, founder and director of Seeza Tourism SMME Network – a sharing network founded on SME collaboration in the tourism sector across Southern Africa – speaking during the third live webinar held by South African Tourism on April 16 as part of its ongoing engagement with industry on developing a post-COVID-19 tourism recovery plan.
“One of the biggest mistakes SMMEs make is pitching their prices in line with the larger sector players. In fact, offering competitive pricing is one of this sector’s biggest advantages,” he said.
He believes the fact that SMMEs have lower overhead costs and can, therefore, bid at a lower price could see them recovering more quickly post-COVID-19 than many of their larger counterparts.
“But for smaller players to take advantage of this competitive edge, there have to be some deliberate policy interventions at government level,” Septi pointed out, highlighting that many events were organised by governments and state-owned entities.
“There should be policies in place that include the procurement of SMME suppliers for any government event,” he elaborated, noting that tourism bodies such as South African Tourism and the Tourism Business Council of South Africa needed to lobby government to ensure high-level policy intervention.
The other “deliberate act” required is to encourage SMMEs to collaborate on events. “It makes sense to encourage companies that need events management services to look at outsourcing different aspects of the event to one or two PCOs rather than just one,” said Septi.
He even encouraged bigger companies to look at pairing with an SMME and providing mentorship and training on a bigger project.
“The sooner the industry gets back on its feet and is able to offer a strong and diverse portfolio of business events options, the sooner the sector will bounce back. It’s in everyone’s best interest to collaborate and make this happen,” said Septi.
