DESTINATION MARKETING
Bringing Meetings
Back To Nairobi
By Feisal Lasker
W
hen narrowing down the
options for site selection of
your annual business meeting,
the question becomes, ‘what destination
can deliver everything needed to be
productive at competitive rates, plus an
appealing atmosphere that will make
delegates excited to attend?’ The answer
is Nairobi - A city whose Conference
Tourism lights went dim in the last 3 years
in the backlash of weekend economy and
controversial media coverage as a place for
serious meetings.
As per the ICCA statistics 2018 Kenya
is ranked 4th with 31 meetings after SA,
Morocco and Egypt in that order. On the
other hand with respect to Cities Nairobi
as well is Ranked 4th after Cape Town,
Kigali and Marrakech.
Though recovery is slow, the city
is emerging with some hotels and
Convention Centres seeing advance
increased bookings for 2020 up from 12
International Conferences the same time
last year.
To be certain, Nairobi has never lost its
vibrant conference tourism product. The
product has to be made more attractive and
the value proposition more outstanding.
Many cities are loudly showing off their
value while Nairobi is yet to properly
package itself.
If a destination wants to grow, you have
to invest in the product; we are now
competing with cities that have sales
forces 10 times our size.
Nairobi is yet to adopt the Convention
Bureau model in destination marketing for
conferences while competing destinations
are already transforming the model since
the existing one is near obsolete.
The Nairobi County should contemplate
introducing an occupancy tax on hotels
to help fund and operate a Destination
The Nairobi County should contemplate
introducing an occupancy tax on hotels
to help fund and operate a Destination
Marketing Organization (DMO). This,
if prudently applied, will turn around
the sluggish business in the destination
and spur more business to the same out-
lets.
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Marketing Organization (DMO). This,
if prudently applied, will turn around the
sluggish business in the destination and
spur more business to the same outlets.
What is a Convention
Bureau?
The Convention Bureau, popularly known
as CVB, is a valuable meeting planner
partner once you understand exactly
why they exist and how they work. A
convention and visitors bureau also called
a destination marketing organization is a
non-profit organization whose mission is
to promote the long term development
and marketing of a destination by focusing
on convention sales, tourism marketing
and services.
CVB’s are uniquely qualified to be the
best first point of contact for any meeting
or event because of their comprehensive
view of the destination, local expertise,
extensive market relationships and
complimentary assistance.
Essentially the terms CVB and DMO
are interchangeable. Referred to as CVB’s
for many decades, Destination Marketing
Organizations
began
identifying
themselves as DMO’s in an effort to
convey less bureaucratic connotation to
the travelling public.
Every CVB is a DMO but technically
not every DMO is a Convention and
Visitors bureau: some destinations have
no meeting facilities and consequently
market to leisure travelers only, while some