With Accra being selected over other African cities to host the impending United Nations World Tourism Organisation’s (UNWTO) Branding Africa Conference currently taking place, making the city the first in Africa to host the event, does it mean Accra has finally arrived as a meetings destination?
According to statistics from the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA), of 11,156 international meetings held globally in 2012, only 304 were held on the African continent, a mere 2.7percent Of these, South Africa hosted 97 association meetings, followed by Kenya with 29 and Morocco with 23. Egypt would feature, but the rest of the continent would have ‘no show,’ or if there were any, it would be negligible.
In that same year, Ghana’s only capacity indoor venue, ‘The Dome,’ situated at the Accra International Conference Centre, a structure that could seat some 6,000, was closed down for renovations and has not been reopened since, leaving the country completely out of the league of possible large-scale global meetings destinations.
Africa is said to be at the forefront of global growth, with seven of the world’s fastest-growing economies, and as South Africa’s Tourism Minister, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, once remarked, “Even in world regions characterised by low or no economic growth, we can still look forward to a period of moderate expansion in meetings, events and business travel. In those world regions with fast-expanding economies, such as ours, much greater growth can be expected.”
How prepared, thus, is Ghana?
Meetings and corporate (business) events contribute something like US $106 billion to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the United States alone. There, destination marketing organisations bend over backwards to deliberately create incentives to attract large association meetings and congresses, putting out an arsenal of ideas to help organisers prove the economic value of their events to city officials and community stakeholders in order to grow the meetings and conventions industry.
This is not the case in Ghana, regrettably. There is no concerted effort to deliberately court any major international meetings. If they happen, it is a happenstance, or the effort of an individual, association or private organisation.
The private sector has long been urged to join forces with the government to build bigger capacity meetings complexes or venues in the effort to get the country to better compete on the global stage as a potential destination for the growing international meetings market. Never has this need been stronger than now.
Currently, the largest capacity venue is the Accra International Conference Centre. It seats about 2,500 with the National Theatre, next in line seating about 1,500. The top hotels in the country have catered for meetings but their capacity, again, is not up to scratch.
Movenpick, perhaps, has the largest meeting room holding up to 600.
Ghana’s President, John Dramani Mahama, in August 2013 disclosed that the government had secured funding from the Turkish Export and Import Bank to put up a second National Theatre in Kumasi. That project is expected to have a bigger auditorium than the one in Accra; one that will stand in good stead to hold meetings. Work on it is, however, yet to commence.
The facility is expected to seat about 3000. The private sector, has been encouraged to invest in the sector because it assures good returns, considering the enabling climate and incentives for building complexes that would hold large-scale events. The operative word here is large-scale.
The term “meeting” is defined to refer to a gathering of 10 or more participants for a minimum of four hours in a contracted venue.
According to the UNWTO, a meeting is a general term indicating the coming together of a number of people in one place, to confer or carry out a particular activity. And this can include anything from conventions, conferences, congresses, trade shows and exhibitions, incentive events, corporate/business meetings, and other meetings that meet the aforementioned criteria.
The activities of the Meetings Industry are an increasingly significant element in the future growth of the global economy, an essential part of the spread of knowledge and professional practices, and a key factor in building better understanding and relations among different regions and cultures.
In addition to important business opportunities, the Meetings Industry provides immense benefits to the broader economy as it generates on average a higher spending level, reduces seasonality, contributes to the regeneration of destinations, spreads knowledge and enhances innovation and creativity.
With over 150 dignitaries and stakeholders in the tourism industry expected to be present at the conference, perhaps, this is the time for Ghana to bring its best foot forward.
Ghana has much to gain should it position itself as a meetings destination, and seeing as the country was selected to host this all-important conference could trigger Ghana’s incursion into becoming a major player in the meetings industry globally.
The positive points of the meetings industry
There are several “positive points,” and these include meetings being big business in their own right, playing an important role in supporting other businesses. Meetings;
• promote investment, trade, communications and technology.
• bring education and professional development to the local community, creating jobs and retaining workforces.
• are a “clean” industry, promoting environmental quality.
• represents the “high end” of visitor spending.
• promotes global understanding and co-operation.
• attract global expertise,
• create and spread knowledge worldwide,
•help build community profile.
One of the main barriers hindering the development of the industry, however, is the inability to manage what isn’t measured!
What’s more, if you can’t measure it, it doesn’t exist. Yet, the fact that such measurement isn’t easy to gauge is no reason to abandon efforts or discount the value meetings, conventions and exhibitions generate.
That’s the problem, even today, for a true measurement of the meetings industry we would have to measure items like:
Attendee Spending, includes all purchases, including taxes and tips, made by the attendee/delegate and their companions (e.g., spouse). It also includes any additional spending made in the market before or after the actual event due to extended stays.
The biggest gap of all is reserved for the most important factor – the value that meetings tourism generates in terms of professional development, knowledge transfer, investment generation, jobs creation and retention, talent acquisition, technical progress and all other areas that define why these events happen in the first place. Here, there has typically been an abandonment of any real effort to even try and, as a result, the most valuable benefit of all is simply ignored.
Government and community attitudes shape our working environment as an industry. They, together, control major decisions that determine our future, including such things as: Capital investment in meetings facilities, investment in meetings marketing and promotion, local infrastructure development (i.e. hotels), community support for hosting potentially disruptive events, transportation and travel policy (competitive access), national and international security measures and local and national taxation policies.
As our industry grows, so does its impacts and interactions with the rest of the community. We need awareness and understanding to get the kind of support needed for the industry to continue to grow and prosper.