Uganda’s rise in ICCA’s latest report represents a growth by four points compared to the 2018 report, where Uganda ranked 10th on the African continent. An aeria view of Kampala city taken from a DFCU bank building at Nakasero. (Photo by Ivan Kabuye) TOURISM
KAMPALA – Uganda ranked sixth on the African continent as the most popular destination for international conferences and events according to the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA).
ICCA is the world’s leading association for the global meetings, conference and events industry.
Its annual statistics report is one of the few that compares destinations’ meetings-related performance on a global scale and therefore provides great insight into global trends in the meetings industry.
Uganda’s rise in ICCA’s latest report represents a growth by four points compared to the 2018 report, where Uganda ranked 10th on the African continent. The rankings are based on the number of association meetings taking place regularly, rotating between at least three different countries and with 50 participants.
On the African continent, South Africa tops the chart with an estimated number of participants with 3,579 delegates in 2019, Morroco ranked 2nd (12,391 delegates), Rwanda 3rd (19,075) and Egypt came in 4th (14,481). Kampala city These were followed by Kenya and Uganda hosting 27 and 22 international meetings respectively but hosted slightly less "than 10,000 estimated total number of participants in 2019."
Reaction to the report
Uganda Tourism Board (UTB) chief executive officer, Lilly Ajarova, said Uganda hosted 22 association meetings including the 64th Commonwealth Parliamentarians Conference, 8th African Population Conference, Africa Now Summit, 4th African Judicial Dialogue and the 2nd Congress of the African Primatological Conference; among others all which attracted a variance of domestic, regional and international visitors and contributed to the rankings that currently place Uganda as a top Meeting and Events destination in Africa.
"In 2020, Uganda had organised and was scheduled to host a number of notable conferences and meetings that had to be rescheduled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. These included among others; the G77 summit, Africa Climate week, World Health Summit, CBR World Congress and the AfrAA Conference," Ajarova said.
She noted that many of these conferences have been rescheduled to take place in 2021 pending confirmation of the dates as the COVID-19 pandemic is examined and travel restrictions reviewed.
Key trends In 2019, the average total expenditure on all meetings in the ICCA Association Database was almost $ 11 billion […]
