Uganda Re-Positions as world’s leading MICE destination.

The Uganda Tourism Board –UTB, has urged the private sector in tourism to start preparing to promote, prepare bids and get ready for international meeting, conferences and events.

This is as the country recovers from the effects of the covid19 lockdown with no record of covid19 deaths since the year 2022 began.

CEO of UTB, Ms. Lilly Ajarova , during the training of private sector players in the industry noted, “we are positioning ourselves to even get to the top of the ranking and that’s why we engaging with the private sector, preparing them, sharpening their skills or knowledge as Uganda Tourism Board, specifically also marketing Uganda as a MICE-destination.”

MICE is an acronym for Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Events, a type and category of tourism that brings together large groups, usually planned well in advance.

“So, MICE is one thing that we’re using to position Uganda as a destination that provides the services. We are engaging with the private sector to refresh their knowledge and skills, and also for the facility owners to be more prepared as Uganda Tourism Board hosts what we call the Uganda Convention Bureau, Uganda Convention Bureau is a department within Uganda tourism board that is responsible for providing the support to the private sector on the MICE industry.” Ajarova added.

In 2019 Uganda was ranked the sixth most popular destination in Africa for hosting international conferences and events by the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) which represents the world’s leading association for the global meetings, conference and events industry.

According to Ajarova, Uganda had performed well in 2018 and 2019 before the Covid19 disruption and prior to those years they had been preparing better with a business plan to focus on the direction they wanted to take with MICE, as a country.

“We prepared more bids, and we got more meetings that we hosted and conferences that got us in sixth position and now we are positioning ourselves to get to the top of the ranking and that’s why we are engaging with the private sector, preparing and sharpening their skills and knowledge to market Uganda as a MICE destination.  

In attendance was Mr. Rick and College Taylor, CEOs of the Business Tourism Company and International Tourism Consultancy who said that they were delighted to be in Uganda with the single-minded purpose of establishing a new economic system “the Uganda Convention Bureau”, which will be housed under UTB to attract a $100 million to shows by the year 2025.

“MICE is an arena Uganda has just started to explore and is the really an exciting roadmap for the destination for the country.” Taylor said.

To do that, he says, the institution is going to deliver amazing opportunities from an investor point of view from a job creation point of view and of course, the government to the GDP.