AviaDev, the African aviation development conference, will take place in Cape Town in June 2018 at the Southern Sun Cape Sun Hotel from June 12 to14.

The networking event, which is entering its third year of growth, initially took place in Kigali, alongside the African Hotel Investment Forum, AHIF, and explored the link between Aviation and Hospitality development.

Bench Events, AviaDev’s organiser, expects to welcome 250-300 delegates and 30 airlines to the only forum that is dedicated to advancing Africa’s connectivity right across the continent.

Bringing together airports, airlines, tourism authorities, governments and industry suppliers, AviaDev offers attendees the ability to pre-arrange meetings in professional surroundings, offering the opportunity to hold high-level discussions with a wide range of current and prospective partners in an extremely time-efficient manner.

IATA has identified that the top 10 fastest growing aviation economies over the next 20 years will all be in Africa and AviaDev aims to facilitate this growth through its world class conference programme, meeting system and unrivalled networking opportunities.

The principal conversations at AviaDev will take place between the top management of airports and of airlines.

Dikko Nwachukwu, Founder and CEO, jetWest Airways (FlyjetWest), said of the event: “AviaDev is the most progressive aviation conference in Africa. It is the present and definitely the future standard for African Aviation.”

A major factor behind the move to Cape Town has been the sponsorship of the Cape Town Air Access Initiative. The Initiative has made aviation route development a strategic priority in its own efforts to promote the region as a destination to visit and to conduct business.

In the past year, Cape Town has gained 10 new routes and seen expansion of an additional 11 routes, resulting in a 25% increase in international passenger numbers for 2017.

According to the World Travel & Tourism Council, Cape Town earns over $2 billion per annum in inbound tourism expenditure and it forecasts healthy economic growth, in excess of 6% per annum in the coming decade.

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