MARKETING AFRICA MAL 18/17 mal 18:17 online | Page 46

DESTINATION MARKETING
MICE: THE UNTAPPED
FRONTIER FOR
ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT IN
KENYA
By Ben Asoro
M
eetings, Incentives,
Conference and Events/
Exhibitions, MICE,
has often been referred to as the
most resilient and lucrative niche
in the tourism industry. In fact the
contribution to the gross domestic
product, GDP, of a country has
always stood out due to the
documented multiplier effect to an
economy. Vienna, the leading MICE
destination has over time captured
the impact of MICE to the economy.
For instance, in 2012 according
to Vienna Economic Report
(Wirtschaftliche Effekte 2012),
the destination used ‘Event Model
Austria – M. Stoff-Hochreiner,
to compute economic and fiscal
effects of national and international
congresses hosted in Vienna.
According to the cited report, and
for the interest of economists, this
was calculated on the basis of all
domestic expenditure associated with
conferences. These demand flows
induced added value in the sectors
directly affected by MICE activities
and in the upstream economic
sectors. The impact of these demand
flows on the Austrian economy was
then computed using an ‘input-
output analysis’ and an econometric
model of the Austrian economy.
‘‘ Often times, destination marketers like
KTB rightly spend huge amounts of resources
on a variety of media to get destination
message across. Probably this cannot compare
with the impact of free press coverage when,
say, world leaders convene at KICC for a
conference or the exposure value of a single
tweet by the owner of Virgin airlines while
attending an event in KICC. ’’
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Finally an additional sub-model of
the public sector was used to reveal
the fiscal effects of the congresses.
Such an elaborate and academic
approach to study the multiplier
effect of MICE to the national
or regional economies looks very
impressive but not as impressive as
the numbers of the research findings
captured in the extract in the Vienna
Industry meetings Report 2012
report on page 28.
An average pessimist would dismiss
the above report as relevant to the
developed world but the truth of the
matter is that Africa is certainly not
left behind in capturing economic
impact of MICE to the respective
economies.
A different perspective comes into light
as it captures the airline seats purchased
by conference delegates, airport taxes and
hotel bed nights during the conference
days but certainly would be much better if
such items like delegates’ personal expenses,
participation fees, extra expenses by meeting
planners on conference support services and
expenses on parallel events were captured to
give an accurate and wholesome picture of
the contribution of this niche to the State
and Federal economy.