Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) plays host to many local and international events/FILE
NAIROBI, Kenya Nov 19 – A delegation of Kenyan business tourism stakeholders will from Tuesday embark on a campaign to market and position Kenya as a favourable business events and conferencing destination at the IBTM show in Barcelona.
Kenya is among the 15,000 conference tourism industry players that will participate in this year’s IBTM Barcelona show, an annual leading global event for meetings and events industry.
The Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC), the state parastatal mandated to market and position Kenya for conference tourism both locally and internationally, is coordinating Kenya’s participation at the show on behalf of the Ministry of Tourism.
KICC will be joined by other partners from private sector. They include InterContinental Kenya, Pride Inn, Twiga Tours, Raddison Blu Kenya, Safari Park Hotel, Enashipai Hotels, and Maniago Tours.
The KICC Chief Executive Officer Nana Gecaga said this is the first time the show has attracted seven private sector participants from Kenya.
“This shows the country is taking up its position as a preferred Conference Tourism destination in Africa. KICC continues to work closely with private sector to position Kenya as the preferred business and conference tourism destination,’’ she said.
Adding KICC has made deliberate efforts to include partners in aggressive marketing of the destination by taking up a bigger elaborately branded Exhibition stands. The Centre has also undertaken a number of other marketing initiatives that will position the Country for conference tourism.
The IBTM show is expected to reap business leads that will be followed up as potential conferences and events to be hosted in Kenya. Kenya has a total of 180 hosted buyer appointments and several group presentations that will be providing leads for potential conventions and incentives travel to Kenya.
Most conferences that the country hosts are through bidding and aggressive follow up from the government and private sector.
Kenya has recently raised its profile owing to the high-end international conferences it has hosted in the recent past, thereby making its bid to host more international conferences much easier.
This comes as a few days after Kenya hosted one of the biggest conferences this year, The International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD 25) which brought 9,500 delegates. Some of the upcoming conferences to be hosted at KICC will include:
• The 9th Summit of Afro Carribean (ACP) Pacific Heads of State and Government 6 -10, December 2019.
• Africa Conference on Sexual Health & Rights Conference 11-13 February, 2020
• Einstein 2020 forum 8-15 March, 2020
• Africa Water Security Congress 27-29 April, 2020 among others.
The Country has lined up a number of activities both within and outside Kenya to promote conference tourism in Kenya.
The delegation from Kenya will be led by government officials and private sector in conference tourism.
