DESTINATION MARKETING HOW DO COUNTRIES BID TO WIN CONFERENCES ?
DESTINATION MARKETING HOW DO COUNTRIES BID TO WIN CONFERENCES ?
By Ben Asoro
I
was recently invited to give a talk to the Technical University students in Nairobi and I was very impressed with the quest for such specialized industry knowledge and the determination of the upcoming destination marketing and MICE professionals to know as much as possible about the industry well before they embark on various lines of events / conference management careers .
To the contrary , very few organizations in the MICE industry in Kenya today , do have a deeper understanding , compared to their counterparts elsewhere in Africa , on how counties bid to win conferences . In fact only a handful names come to mind !
I speak under correction , but I suspect that if these organizations had a better grasp of the bidding cycles then , they could be better placed to strategically position themselves and partner with various agencies charged with responsibility of promoting MICE in Kenya to help the destination place stronger bids , win and host more high profile international conferences .
It is also fair to say that such lack of information is not unique to the Kenyan situation but more importantly suggests the opportunity lost when potential partners do not get adequate information or training for purposes of partnering with host institutions to augment value
‘‘ If these organizations had a better grasp of the bidding cycles then , they could be better placed to strategically position themselves and partner with various agencies charged with responsibility of promoting MICE in Kenya to help the destination place stronger bids , win and host more high profile international conferences ’’ proposition and create memorable experience for delegates . Ultimately more forex will be injected in the economy through multiplier effect of the same .
This article would therefore serve to highlight various steps in conference bidding process to enlighten interested and potential partners appreciate where they could strategically place themselves to help Kenya place stronger bids , win / host more conference and also benefit from the same .
At the onset , may I mention that conferences could be broadly categorized as :
1 . Association Conferences ( e . g . International Water Association Conference , IWA )
2 . Corporate Conferences ( e . g . International Upstream Oil & Gas Conference )
3 . Governmental / Intergovernmental ( e . g . UNWTO and TICAD conferences )
4 . Non state actors / NGO conferences ( e . g . World Vision Conference )
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