Kenyatta International Convention Centre to tap into Sh32 billion conference tourism pie

Kenya is angling to tap into the billions of shillings that go to the South Africa economy, when the country convenes its first business meetings, incentives travel, conferencing and exhibitions (MICE) early next year.

The event is designed to share knowledge, institutional memory and implementation insights. It is expected to help participants grow their businesses and boost Kenya’s business tourism. “The MICE Expo is expected to inject about Sh32 billion into Kenya’s economy through the multiplier effect of the monies that will accrue to the national domestic product,” said Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) Managing Director Fred Simiyu.

South Africa has dominated MICE activities for years and has been the only country that has held both their local and international business tourism forums. The inaugural MICE meeting has been organised by the KICC, as it positions itself as a preferred business tourism frontier globally.

Through the Ministry of Tourism and Trade, the upcoming two-day MICE meeting, which will be held from January 23rd,  2015, will be local, followed by an international business tourism MICE in the following year. “This requires KICC to engage into harnessing Kenya’s MICE potential by aggressively market the destination. The fruit of this proactive marketing has been the facilitation of bids to attract meetings and events to this country as per the National MICE Strategy,” said the KICC managing director.

INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITORS

The Expo is expected to attract more than 80 exhibitors in the meetings industry and will focus on bringing together buyers and sellers of the MICE industry.

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He said the MICE Expo is set to become an annual event from 2016, and will attract international exhibitors with a view to benchmarking with leading world exhibitions like Meetings Africa, of South Africa, IMEX of Germany and Confex of London, which attracts more than 5,500 international visitors worldwide every year.

Apart from the Expo, the event will also offer industry players multiple opportunities to network through the conference that will be coordinated by captains of the industry.

“The growth of the conference tourism sector will be a great boost to the tourism industry, in the wake of low tourist numbers from our traditional source markets,” he said.