A close to hundred-thirty-year-old city, New Flower, (Addis Ababa) in local language Amharic, has been undertaking a range of activities to provide itself with a majestic look and reputation and grace as its name bespeaks. Of the multitude of steps taken that help contribute to the effort to make the city standardized, a number of conferences, meetings, forums, summits have been recurrently and widely held across the capital.
Hence, it is better to ask what significance does ‘being a conference city’ have and how is it quite important to build image and help grow economy? The response could definitely be ‘yes it does have,’ and being a conference city has all the time helped the economy grow well and wholeheartedly build capital as well as national image. Undeniably, being a conference city can be important for a number of reasons, too as hosting a number of conferences can generate local income and boost economic activity, and help drive long-term financial development, progress and change in all aspects at the end of the day.
As far as attracting talent is concerned, having an opportunity to host a multitude of conferences can be a way to attract global expertise and encourage it to relocate to the community. Besides, a city image in particular and a national image building effort has been bearing fruits. True, conferences can help enhance a city’s exposure to various global events and its reputation can be well built. Expanding hospitality via showing the entrenched norms, cultures, traditions and other important social values have also been well nurtured and introduced the city and the nation to the rest of the world through the guests, who have cordially been hosted.
Yes, the expansion of the conference has contributed a lot to building capital as well as national image, creating job opportunities, economic development, and tourism promotion. Furthermore, conferences can attract business tourists, who can generate local income and increase a range of economic activities. In fact, as experiences would have it, over half of the revenues to a community from conventions, conferences and summits come from areas beyond visitor services.
Since the number of tourists continues to grow and their inflow has demanded a lot of infrastructure, making all the necessary requirements needs to be made prioritized. In so doing, high-grade visitors and tourists can be attracted to help the capital have optimum benefit with minimal demerits. This is where meetings, conventions and exhibitions, collectively known as the meetings industry, may offer the best option for the capital looking to optimize the revenue while at the same time looking to its broader economic and social policy aspirations for the betterment of inhabitants. What is practically being done in Ethiopia, especially in the capital, is a case in point in this regard.
There are of course a number of good reasons why being conference city is worth pursuing as a priority for the capital. Numerous guests, be they are from abroad or locally initiated to visit the capital, have spent hours, days, weeks, even months thereby optimizing economic returns.
A range of visitors and/or tourists be they are business or professional people or average visitors, are on expenses and contributing to the economic spectrum when they stay in the city. When it comes to convention-related revenues, it is not just about the hospitality sector as many claim. As practically witnessed instead, the majority of the revenues to a community arise from things like staging, organization, and technology and event organization areas far beyond what would traditionally be thought of as visitor services.
When it comes to community benefits as a whole too, the best of all is why visitors or summit attendants are partaking in order to share and enhance experiences and expertise, which generally rubs off on the local community, leaving a legacy of knowledge and creative experience that both reflects well on the capital and advances the contacts and knowledge of the local business, academic and professional communities.
Unequivocally, many people would like their capital to be appealing and luring for dwellers and visitors as well and sustainably keeping its reputation. That is why myriads of organizations, companies, public offices and other concerned have organized events that would potentially bring together national academic sects, continental think tanks and global expertise for thorough deliberations on social, economic, political or other related aspects to meet aspirations for future economic, social and even political progress.
Yes, major events being hold in Addis Ababa attract global attention whether within a specialized audience or when the world as a whole is watching what is going on. This raises capital’s profile and prestige, particularly when the achievements of a hosted group relate to the policy objectives of the government.
Many visitors of course tend to wait for many days spending foreign currencies at hotels, reports, guest houses and other possible places. This in turn helps the capital swell economic muscle apart from enabling the capital to contribute a lot to the effort geared towards building image.
Meetings, conventions and conferences, on the other hand, have much more flexibility and often seek out off seasons specifically to get better deals on accommodation and to avoid the chaos of peak periods. In the end, this is just what most hospitality suppliers need in order to sustain them through the more challenging times until the next peak arrives.
Across the globe, many savvy cities are realizing that a major conference can be one of the best available tools for attracting and accessing the global expertise that represent the future of key sectors, and an opportunity to encourage them to promote the livelihoods of the community. Addis Ababa is following suit as this approach can be one of the most effective avenues for reinforcing other economic development initiatives and reinvigorating image building tasks.
Unequivocally, Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia and the diplomatic centre of Africa, embodies a close to 130 year of development history that contributes to its current socio-spatial features. Its status as a primate city located at the heart of the nation has made the capital a melting pot of people with diverse background and geographic origins.
Most of Addis Ababa’s development challenges can be attributed to its unplanned origin and growth, infeasible development strategies, lack of implementation capacity, and widespread poverty that has resulted in chronic problems in almost every aspect of the urban life. The reaction of the incumbent to these challenges is expressed in its growth and transformation program that embrace the urban development agenda, which is predominantly being widely undertaken across the capital under the umbrella initiative called ‘corridor Project.’
The historical, demographic, socioeconomic and spatial aspects of Addis Ababa have to be kept intact of course, and as the higher the intensity of conferences and summits held in the capital the greater the opportunity it would have to garner a benefit with a view to intensifying various socio-economic developments.
When it comes to securing the most benefit out of any given category of visitor, making the capital much more catchy has to come to the forefront. Undeniably, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia has been a conference city for many years, hosting a variety of regional, continental and international events and grad conferences, accommodating a number of guests coming to it for working or a mere visiting target.
To make all this real, the capital has to have state-of-the-art technologies, multi-purpose venues, well standardized hotels, quality guest houses and the like. It is much more common these days to hear visitors, tourists and other local or foreign guests in the capital, Addis Ababa, in particular and across the nation in general saying they have felt at home following the very friendliness, politeness, approachability, and accommodating and trustworthy nature of the indigenous citizens along with the sumptuous climate condition.
Far beyond that, the sense of ease tourists feel when walking twenty-four hours on the streets of Addis without any fear for their personal wellbeing is another factor that adds to the city’s aura of feeling at home. Here, conference tourism plays pivotal role in image building beyond generating huge direct and indirect income. Therefore, utilizing this powerful tool for socio-economic prosperity is in the hands of Ethiopia and Ethiopians.
No doubt, Addis Ababa is always in the eyes of a number of international event organizers. Successful hosting of prior international conferences is the prime reason for that. The nation’s diplomatic ties and credibility in hosting international conferences effectively has received worldwide credit, too.
Ethiopia has still huge potential to generate considerable income from conference tourism though it has not yet fully utilized it. For the purpose of securing the benefit it deserves out of the conference tourism, the capital should own internationally standardized conference centers, which are expected to attract global conferences and grand summits. True, the capital has to capitalize on the way how attracting conferences can be confidently availing with a view to maximizing the positive impacts, both short-term and long-term, of events.
Generally, as the conferences and summits being held in the capital have demanded high standard of venues, Addis Ababa is expected to construct and promote the existing ones to make it a conference city, because whenever the city fulfills all the requirements, being a conference city for it would be as easy as locating places found in it.
To maximize tourist activity during and after conferences, destinations should facilitate and encourage conference attendees to visit local businesses, support and engage with associations and conference organizers to provide networking opportunities, remembering that the more local businesses that attendees visit and the more contacts that are made create a higher intention to revisit as a tourist.
Besides, conferences are of paramount importance in promoting many legacies and outcomes. Even one conference will have positive legacy outcomes in due course of showing and or attracting many more participants. Addis Ababa has thus to be in a position to build its image and that of the nation entirely via maximizing positive impacts of building image.
BY MENGESHA AMARE
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD FRIDAY 1 NOVEMBER 2024
