In order to expand tourism revenues, Kenya has adopted the global bets practices to become a hub for conferences and events.
Keziah Odemba, director of tourism in the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife mentioned that government will leverage on regulatory incentives, marketing, capacity development and technology to host major conferences and exhibitions. They are committed to develop proper regulations to spur growth of conferencing and events industry. They will be diversifying the tourism sector to generate higher returns. During the Global Meetings Industry Day attended by the policymakers, investors in the tourism sector and researchers she made the remark.
After the launch in 2016, Kenya hosted the Global Meeting Industry for the first time drawing the attention of the tourism stakeholders for concerted efforts to stimulate growth of meetings, events and conference (MICE) sub-sector which is a an important source of revenue and jobs.
According to Jonah Orumoi, managing director of Tourism Finance Corporation (TFC), Kenya is well placed to develop a vibrant conference and events industry due to investments in supportive infrastructure, political stability and strategic location. There is a potential for growth in the country through events and conference industry, presence of modern convention centres, security, upgraded transport infrastructure and high speed internet connection. There were benching-marking tours in Rwanda and South Africa, here the conference tourism is vibrant to make it successful.
Through robust public private partnerships Kenya will be promoted as an attractive destination for for conferences, exhibitions and road shows as per Kezy Mukiri, chief executive officer of Nairobi based events Company Zuri Events.
