Business Link

- Ready or not

“The opportunity is enormous. So is the risk.” That’s what Thabiso Tlelai, CEO of the Don Suite Hotels, told a Biznetwork seminar focusing on business opportunities around ‘the biggest business event to hit South Africa’ – the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup.

Speakers on the panel agreed that sustainability of any new business venture set up to take advantage of the football World Cup is crucial. The four weeks of the event itself should be viewed as nothing more than the platform to get a business off the ground; before and after the event are actually more significant than the event itself.

The biggest risk lies in investing large sums in businesses that focus purely on the event itself, without planning for how the business will keep going in the future. As Brian Joffe, Chief Executive of Bidvest, put it, “The games themselves will be very expensive and highly competitive for business people, so it won’t be easy to make money around the games.”

That does not mean Eastern Cape business should – or can – ignore the event. Everyone will be affected – the risks include lack of space on flights, clogged roads, diverted trucks, FIFA’s clampdown on competitive advertising and branding on all approach routes and around the stadiums, absenteeism as workers go to the games or fan parks, and more.

Anyone focusing just on these negatives will be scoring an own goal. The Soccer World Cup is an opportunity to place the Eastern Cape firmly on the international tourist map. The province has it all – malaria free Big Five game reserves, unequalled experiences at the Addo Elephant National Park, more battlefields than anywhere else in the country, Struggle history, a unique cultural heritage that includes San, Xhosa, Dutch, English, German, and Khoisan peoples. Include all seven of South Africa’s biomes within an few hours drive of Port Elizabeth, the Wild Coast, skiing in the mountains, and the Indian Ocean lapping along hundreds of kilometres of white beaches and rich rocky coastline and we have it all. The challenge is to create a lasting legacy that will keep tourism scoring long after the final whistle.

“The World Cup is the biggest ever event hosted in South Africa and it brings with it a guaranteed tourism boom. Over 15 billion football fans around the world will be exposed to South Africa for four weeks. Many of these viewers – and the people who travel to South Africa to watch the matches – will want to visit the country with their families. As a result, there could be as much as a 50 per cent growth in tourism for several years after the event,” Gary Bailey of Game Plan 2010 told guests at a Nelson Mandela Bay Community Chest Friends of the Red Feather lunch.

Pic: Gary Bailey

Partnerships needed
But, he and others caution that few companies will be able to meet both the challenges and opportunities on their own. Tlelai says the Don Hotel Group created a department to forge partnerships with international tour operators two years ago. Entrepreneurs can also look for suitable existing businesses they can partner with. The Community Chest takes it a step further, and is encouraging local companies to make use of the resources offered by charities.

According to Chief Executive Officer Beaulah Lumkwana, there are “well over” a hundred charity groups and organisations in the Metro. Of these, approximately 50 are registered with the Community Chest. One of these is the Yokuselo Haven in Central Port Elizabeth, which provides women and children with a safe haven from domestic violence and provides computer training. This is an “administrative resource that is community based”. Another potential resource is that craft workers, such as those at the E-Zethu Skills Development Centre can also produce mementos, bags and accessories for soccer fans. The people of E-Zethu are already making cloth shopping bags for a national chain.

Bailey stresses that it is important the benefits of the 2010 games filter through to the poorer communities. “Social development is a business imperative,” he says.