Rwanda has consistently ranked among the top most popular destinations for international business conferences in Africa. The International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) has ranked Kigali the second in Africa multiple times.

This top ranking proves that the authorities’ efforts to market the country as a meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE) destination are paying off.

While Rwanda Convention Bureau (RCB), an entity in charge of events coordination, is yet to announce revenue figures for 2024, the MICE industry raked in $95 million in revenue in 2023 –marking the highest revenue earned in the past decade since the inception of the bureau.

The year 2024 was marked with several high-level events that elevated Kigali on international scene. Last year, Rwanda attracted global events ranging from trade, and business forums, sports gatherings, technology, entertainment, and education, among others.

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Celestin Makuza, the chief executive at Events Factory Rwanda, a local events management company, said that despite Marburg virus disease that occurred towards the end of the year, 2024 was a fairly productive year as evidenced by the frequency of events that were hosted in Rwanda.

"We see a rebound this year and most of the events that were supposed to take place during that time were postponed to this year. We see a lot of interest for our destination this year and we hope the trend continues,” he said.

Valentine Nashipae, Managing Director of Cube Communications Ltd, said that the industry has evolved, positioning Rwanda as a competitively global destination for international events.

This, she said, has been a result of an enabling environment created by the government in terms of investments and frameworks that have attracted the private sector to venture into the space.

"We haven’t maximised our potential yet, but we are definitely heading in the right directionl; if anything, accelerating towards it,” she noted.

According to the RCB website, Rwanda hosted 77 events in 2024 and welcomed at least 10,000 delegates in the fourth quarter only. Currently, it shows at least 36 events are set to be hosted this year.

However, professional conference organizers (PCOs) said they have more events lined up for agreement finalisation before being reported to RCB and in some cases, clients prefer not to announcetheir events ahead of time. This means that the number of scheduled events could increase throughout the year.

Even with this growth, there has been a resounding call for players in the industry to diversify their offerings beyond just hosting conferences to make guests stay longer and spend more in the country.

"As a sector we need to ramp up and see how we can attract people not only for those conferences but also beyond them, which is something we are struggling with as a destination,” Makuza said.

According to him, there is an opportunity for the private sector to innovate attractive destination offerings across the country, diversifying from traditional activities, that would spark interest for delegates to indulge in different experiences.

"We need more experiences that get people outside their hotel rooms. Is Nyandungu Eco Park good enough to spend a whole day at? I don’t think so. We can have more to that, for instance, reflect our culture. The most important thing is the way we package and sell them,” he argued.

Makuza highlighted that guests who attend conferences don’t spend all their visiting days looking for dining experiences, suggesting that there more to beautiful restaurants that are flourishing across the city.

Improving experience past five-star hotels

Data from the National Institute of Statistics Rwanda (NISR) indicate that the country now has 1,189 hotels with 21,232 hotel rooms, an increase from 17,078 rooms in 2020.

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Makuza pointed at the fact that these rooms are available across different star-rated hotels hosting a number of delegates, hence, the need to improve the quality of service delivery, beyond the limited number of five-star hotels.

"How good is the ecosystem that if one went to Chez Lando, Beausejour, or any random hotel in Remera or Kicukiro, they can enjoy their stay? If we only focus on five-star hotels, we will be limiting ourselves because we don’t have 500 rooms of that caliber.”

From her experience working in several markets on the continent and internationally, Nashipae emphasized that the private sector plays a crucial role in capacity building, rather than waiting for funding from somewhere else.

"Working together as a team within the private sector would enable us to move much faster in terms of capacity building. There are more infrastructure coming up, the sports industry is gaining traction, we will need more skills capacity to meet the demand,” she noted.

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Nashipae that going forward, there should be value addition in services such as programming and marketing of events.

Local market perception

Wilson Mugwema, CEO of Sensitive Group Ltd, said that there has been remarkable growth of mindset among corporate clients whereby they now understand the need for professional event management and its impact on their sales and turnover, however, it still needs to be matched with value appreciation.

"Another challenge we have is that local clients tend to request business a few days ahead of the event which cripples the preparations and results because of limited time. An event is something that is planned and budgeted for,” he said.

Mugwema also highlighted that inflation has eaten into the company’s finances and the Rwandan Franc depreciation against the dollar affected resources acquisition given that majority of resources and equipment are imported.

"We made an investment of around RWF700 million as cost of equipment, and we could have previously bought more within that budget compared to what we were able to get,” he explained.

When it comes to market competition in an industry that has been on a steady rise over the past years, Makuza said that there are new players joining from time to time, meaning that everyone keeps on making investments in terms of technologies, skills, and resources to stay relevant and competent in the market.

The PCOs also claimed that there are limited number of venues that should be increased because it creates a monopoly over events –a gap that should be bridged to create a more dynamic and competitive market.

Kigali has four conference venues including Kigali Convention Centre, BK Arena, Kigali Conference and Exhibition Village, and Intare Arena, in addition to hotel conference rooms available.