Uganda is rapidly emerging as one of the top contenders in the Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions (MICE) sector in Africa.
As the country scales up efforts to attract and host international events to enhance global visibility, attract tourists and investors to grow the economy, we ask how far can Uganda go with MICE?
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Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions (MICE) tourism has become a significant segment of the travel industry contributing substantially to the economy through business and leisure travel.
MICE events are known for attracting international visitors who may extend their stay to explore Uganda’s tourist attractions, boosting the leisure tourism sector.
Recently Uganda has been positioning herself as Africa's Premier MICE destination bidding to host continental and international events.
For the financial year 2022-2024, Uganda has won five bids of which 2 are already hosted, that's the 11th Africa Society for blood transfusion which was hosted in March 2024 and the Africa diary conference and exhibition which was hosted in September 2023.
The country has also cancelled 2 bids, lost 3, withdrawn 1 and has 5 pending bids.
Uganda has for long been held back by the lack of a national convention bureau.
Mellon Tukeikiriza, the senior MICE officer at Uganda Tourism Board says, they now have a fully functional convention bureau now to bid for multinational conferences.
"For any destination to be recognized as a "Mice" destination. You must have a convention bureau, because some of these meetings that happen destinations bid for them.
A convention bureau is a centre that does the bidding bidding together with government agencies, NGOs, associations, they identify these opportunities with stakeholders to bid and attract these events then the secretariat in charge of evaluations, receive the bids and evaluate destinations that have placed their bids.
Tukeikiriza adds that when a country is shortlisted, in most cases clients come for a sight inspection to verify if the standard facilities are there with professional conference organisers to handle the logistics of their conferences.
"They will come to check exactly if we have the capacity," Tukeikiriza added.
Lilly Ajarova, the chief executive officer of Uganda Tourism Board expresses the need for Uganda to develop more world-class conference centers, such as the Speke Resort Convention Center which hosted the NAM and G77+ China summits and improve to existing facilities, to enhance Uganda's capacity to host large-scale international events.
" We still dont have a good infrastructure for exhibitions. Events can happen more or less anywhere, it can be in the meeting rooms or outdoor, defending on on the type of event but for exhibitions we are either putting up tents. For the last "Pearl of Africa" tourism expo we used the convention centre which was really was very helpful but then it was also small. We need another infrastructure for exhibitions to help us host these conferences and meetings," Ajarova said.
This year's MICE was allocated shs345 million, UTB maintains it is limited budget and makes it hard to implement the national MICE strategy 2025-2030.
Tukeikiriza says there is no subvention fund to support hosting of these conferences, no exhibition center that measures the international standard as a result, no local reliable research hub which explains why most of them are withdrawn on the way after bidding and taken by competitors.
There is renewed effort to increase the number and quality of hotels, especially those with conference facilities to attract more business travelers.
Government set a target of being among the top 5 destinations for MICE in Africa coming from the current 10th position.
With it, has come pre and post tours of foreign visitors with accompanying local officials to promote destination Uganda to attract leisure tourists and investors.
"Also if the conference has been confirmed for example in 2028 in a different destination like Egypt,we are supposed to go their as a destination and do delegate boosting, enticing potential visitors (of that area) with our tourism products," Tukeikiriza noted.
As African cup of nations (Afcon) 2027 and others international meetings and conferences near, uganda is bracing herself to host 350 association meetings in the next five years valued at USD 165 million
Leveraging Uganda's natural and cultural attractions, combined with strategic marketing and continued investment the pearl of Africa can significantly boost its position in the MICE market and become a prominent MICE destination in Africa.
