Kigali steadily grows as a hub for meetings, conferences and exhibitions

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The Kigali Convention Centre. As Rwanda seeks to establish itself as a quality MICE destination, the government has put in place a number of strategies to satisfy international event organisers who seek luxury conference facilities, one of them being the construction of the Kigali Convention Centre.


As all eyes are on Nairobi for the July 24-26 Global Entrepreneurs Summit that will be graced by US President Barack Obama, Kigali, Rwanda is quietly but steadily building its reputation as a choice destination for meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE).

And things seem to be looking up for Rwanda's MICE sector. Later this year, the country will host the Interpol General Assembly and next year the annual Africa Hotel Investment Forum, the World Economic Forum on Africa and the African Union Summit.

Since 2007, tourism has been Rwanda's top foreign-exchange earner, generating up to $303 million in 2014 for the exchequer.

Rwanda is currently world famous for its gorillas tracking tours and over the past decade, growing number of tourists have been visiting on the Volcanoes National Park in the Northern Province to see the primates.

In the region, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda have established tourism sectors but this has not deterred Rwanda from developing its hotels and conference centres to competitive standards.

Itching to grab a slice of the regional conferencing pie, the Rwanda Development Board (RDB) is now moving to make meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions the base of its tourism sector as the country looks to events as one way of diversifying its tourism products and economy.

"We have recently noticed a growing trend of interest in holding international meetings in Rwanda. So, we now have a strategy to promote meetings, conferences and exhibitions in the country," said Francis Gatare, the chief executive of RDB.

Today, Rwanda can proudly say that it has successfully hosted top international meetings and conferences, including the Transform Africa Summit in October 2013 (which was attended by 1,500 delegates), the African Development Bank Annual General Assembly in May 2014 (2,500 delegates), the Africa Insurance Summit in June 2014 (800 delegates), and the ICTs World Export Development Forum in September 2014 (800 delegates).

"MICE is not only a very powerful marketing tool for the country but also a big revenue generator," said Yamina Karitanyi, the chief tourism officer at RDB, at a press briefing on July 8 to announce the annual Africa Hotel Investment Forum to be held next year.

Karitanyi's remarks were based on RDB's statistics, which show that the MICE sector has become a big boost for Rwanda's tourism industry in the recent past. In 2014, Rwanda received 1.17 million tourists, of which 19,085 were conference visitors, accounting for 1.6 per cent of the total figure.

And even though leisure remains a vital part of Rwanda's tourism industry, statistics show that conference visitors spend many times more than leisure tourists. Last year alone, the MICE sector earned Rwanda $50 million, accounting for 16.5 per cent of the total revenues generated from tourism, according to Karitanyi.

Today, Rwanda is ranked 13th most sought after MICE destination on the continent by the International Congress and Convention Association and, according to Frank Murangwa, head of the MICE division at RDB, the country's MICE sector is growing at a rate of 12 per cent per year.

Source: The East African