Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, Exhibitions and events (MICE) remain key pillars in development across Africa tourism. These provide platforms for strategic deal-making and entice new investors to holiday destinations.
With a growing fascination with Africa from developed economies, you can find considerable opportunities to provide a variety of MICE products to the under-served organizations.
Set to take place Accra, the capital of Ghana, the Africa Tourism Leadership Forum is set to focus their discussions on pragmatic methods for developing their MICE tourism industry to diversify their tourism economies through public-private-partnerships.
Rwanda and Ghana are two of the national countries. Addressing the media at Rwanda Development Board (RDB) head offices in Kigali a couple of days ago, Clare Akamanzi, CEO of RDB said Rwanda includes a target of increasing its MICE (Meetings Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions) receipts to US$74 million (R983 million) this season, up from US$42 million (R558 million) this past year.
“You may already know, Rwanda has prioritized MICE among the drivers of economic growth and the federal government has committed to infrastructures just like the Kigali Convention Centre (KICC) and the national airline. We’ve also committed to hotels and attracted the private sector to aid the worthiness chain of the conference tourism” Akamanzi highlighted.
It really is from this background that the upcoming Africa Tourism Leadership Forum(ATLF), that will happen in Accra on 30 and 31 of August, is set to provide capacity coaching and building program running a business tourism and MICE product development.
This scheduled program will undoubtedly be delivered by renowned experts, including representatives from NEPAD (AU), Rwanda, Kenya, South Africa, UK and Ghana.
The goal is to offer bespoke and experiential learning predicated on global best practice, case studies also to up-skill public and private sector delegates attending the forum.
“Business Tourism is really a critical tool for economic growth in Africa. With continuing infrastructure upgrades, improved air connectivity improved visa facilitation and unique cultural tourism assets, you can argue that Africa is ready for business/MICE tourism growth strongly.”, indicates Vincent Oparah, Tourism Advisor at NEPAD.
“Innovative initiatives such as for example ATLF, blended with Capacity Building on business tourism development are overdue long. I’m thrilled that ATLF can help put the spotlight on MICE Tourism development and in addition recognize change-makers in the industry”. He emphasizes.
The dependence on growth in Africa’s tourism arrivals is real, given the continent’s meagre share around 8% of global tourist arrivals. Public-Private sector dialogues at events like ATLF might help forge unity to unlock the continent’s prospect of Business MICE and Tourism tourism.
Register at: tourismleadershipforum.africa to wait, access full program and awards nomination form. For more info, contact Ms. Nozipho Dlamini at +27 11 037 0332.
The Africa Tourism Leadership Forum is supported by the African Tourism Board.