BY MISGANAW ASNAKE
The Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions (MICE) sector is becoming an important contributor to countries’ economies in terms of foreign exchange, trade and hotel and tourism sector growth. For instance, Dubai, the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates organizes some 550 trade fair and exhibitions per year for companies and businesses and earns a significant amount of its income. Besides the income, by organizing such events, the city has an advantage of strengthening ties with citizens of many countries, investors and business to facilitate technology transfer and share the best experiences.
However, following the COVID-19 outbreak, the sector has incurred a significant amount of loss as many of the major trade fair and exhibitions were cancelled or postponed. As many countries are now applying COVID-19 safety protocols and other mechanisms, their MICE sector and its stakeholders have been dragged into bankruptcy.
Last week, the Addis Ababa Chamber of Commerce and Sectoral Associations Secretary (AACCSA) in collaboration with the African Trade Fair Partners organized an event under the theme “Challenges and Prospects of Trade Promotion in Ethiopia in times of COVID-19”. In the panel discussion, participants discussed ways for the exhibition and trade-fair sector to achieve quick recovery following the impacts of COVID-19 and to ensure that the sector emerges to become one of the major foreign currency earners for the country as the pandemic continues to have its effect.
According to Addis Ababa Chamber of Commerce and Sectoral Associations Secretary-General Getachew Regassa, Ethiopia has not yet properly exploited the sector’s potential in the past many years. Yet, MICE has been contributing to the country’s income and if it receives due attention, the sector could play a significant role in economy in the long run. “Besides its contribution to income generation, it could also become a major contributor to the job creation scheme,” he said.
Since Ethiopia has a strategic location being a gateway to Africa, (it only took three hours and six hours flights from gulf countries and Europe respectively), it is vital to utilize this opportunity to prompt the growth of MICE in Ethiopia. “In this regard, we have taken a bold step by deciding to construct the Addis Africa International Convention and Exhibition Center. Currently, the construction is well underway,” he said.
“Most of the time, few countries organize trade fair and exhibition and sell their products through virtual approach and when the infrastructure is there, out country could also adopt the same strategy in the future,” he added.
Ethiopia lost nearly three million USD from exhibition and trade fair activities due to the outbreak of COVID-19 and the following preventive measures. Aklile Belete Managing Director of African Trade Fair partners on his part said Ethiopia has 700 registered events/exhibition organizer companies. The three million loss in reported by 12 major event organizer companies as the pandemic forced them to cancel a number of events.
According to him, in 2019 the global spending of the event organizing business has jumped over one trillion USD. In the case of African, the annual spending has reached 23 billion USD, of which Ethiopia accounts for 6.5 percent.
Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa is said to be the third important diplomatic city next to New York and Geneva. The various diplomatic missions organize events, trade fairs and exhibitions. And this is one of the reasons for Ethiopia to have a huge potential for MICE.
“In addition, primarily, to promote and sell our products for the world countries, we have to apply and use the MICE industry as one of the major mechanisms,” he said. We will bring significant change in this regard if the government gives due attention to the sector.”
According, if the country adopts the right form of strategy, technology and the likes to reinforce the growth of the sector, MICE could become one of the major foreign currency earners for the country as that of coffee and other commodities.
The major challenges that the sector faces in Ethiopia, as to Aklile, include lack of regulations, infrastructure, incentives, information, knowledge and well-established structure, he said. “While it is the case for many countries, in Ethiopia, the government has not come up with various incentives for the sector.”
It is also important to go ahead with events, trade fairs and exhibitions by strictly following the COVID-19 preventive protocol. “We do not have other alternatives as the pandemic continues to have its effect. We have to be able to reinforce the growth of the industry and its contribution to the economy.”
Aklile also advised the business community to continue to work applying innovation and creativity while at the same time preventing the spread of the pandemic. It is also important to renovate the old exhibition center and operationalise the Millennium Hall. The government and the Customs Commission should also play their part for instance by reducing tax on materials needed to organize standardized events.
The government should separate the MICE industry from the tourism industry. While the two are diffident, there is ambiguity in our case where the two are seen as one and the same. We have to be able to expand events to other cities other than the capital.”
The government has to also prioritize the sector’s role and contribution to the economy, Aklile said. It has to be among the major strategies and sector that are tipped by the government to diversify the country’s economic base.
The Ethiopian Herald January 9 /2021
