KENYA’S ECONOMIC SURVEY SHOWS FIRST DECLINE IN YEARS FOR MICE TOURISM
(Posted 01st May 2014)
Details published in Kenya’s Economic Survey 2014 suggest that the MICE tourism segment, which brings in meetings, incentive group travel, conferences and exhibitions has last year also fallen victim to the general downturn in tourism fortunes. After a sustained growth for several years did the subsector contract by 4.5 percent last year. To put this into perspective, the number of such MICE events in 2010 stood at 2.783, rising to 3.304 in 2011 while reaching a record number of 3.666 in 2012, before sliding back in 2013 to levels below the 2011 mark with only 3.148 such events registered.
Kenya had in past years steadily improved its rankings in Africa as a preferred MICE destination and was only ever pipped to top spot by South Africa, with in particular Nairobi seen as a much in demand location where delegates and conference participants could in pre or post conference tours enjoy the safari parks or laze about the fabulous beaches of Diani or Watamu.
Industry observers attributed the decline to broadly the same factors which had led to a slide in fortunes for tourism in general, but added that the lack of a national convention centre at the coast – proposals have long been made to construct a world class facility at Mombasa’s north coast’ Bamburi area – and at other upcountry locations like Kisumu have had an impact too. ‘The Kenyatta International Convention Centre in Nairobi is still our showcase centre but it is now in need of a major modernization to equip it with state of the art facilities. Several hotels of course have their own conference centres but those are smaller and not geared to the large numbers only KICC can presently manage. It should be noted that upcountry have hotels made inroads into this market, mostly from within Kenya and the region and in particular the Naivasha area has seen meeting facilities come up at existing lodges and hotels. The Lake Naivasha Country Club for instance now has a larger hall, the next door Enashipai also has meeting facilities and so have several others. MICE business is very valuable because of the higher revenues generated. But especially the business travel sector has been hit but changed perceptions and this is something our marketing people have to face up to. The drop described is steep and just like coast tourism is MICE tourism in need of a big bang sales and marketing drive’ wrote a Nairobi based source on the eve of Labour Day, when many employees of coast hotels have been laid off, in a number of cases with overdue salaries, as a result of the loss of business and a dwindling cash flow, which left finance managers to struggle with pending utility bills, tax bills, suppliers bills and salaries.
The forthcoming Hotel Summit East Africa 2014, in short HOSEA 2014 and the parallel Kenya Hospitality Trade Show 2014, both held between 14th and 16th of May, will likely allow the local hospitality industry to also discuss measures to counter the trend, apart from the already set agenda of the symposium, when some 400 delegates from the region will meet up at the KICC with their Kenyan counterparts.
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