KAMPALA, April 11 (Xinhua) -- As Uganda strives to exploit its full tourism potential, the country is now targeting hosting conferences with an aim of attracting over four million tourists by 2020.
Stephen Asiimwe, Chief Executive of Uganda Tourism Board, told reporters on Wednesday that Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Events (MICE) Tourism has the capacity to attract large numbers of tourists and also trigger a multiplier effect of up to 30 times the initial investment.
He said the MICE segment currently contributes about 16 percent of tourism revenue collection, with an annual turnover of more than one thousand meetings and conferences.
"Last year, we received about 1,000 meetings and conferences and this year, we have so far had three high profile ones and several smaller meetings and conferences. With the new strategy, we shall be able to effectively harness the potential of the segment and the tourism sector as a whole," Asiimwe said.
He said strategic marketing of the MICE segment has the potential to create more jobs in the tourism sector, and earn the country more revenue for social and economic development.
He said a number of countries are now looking at MICE as one way of attracting visitors and generating the much needed foreign exchange.
Globally, the United States is credited for hosting the largest number of high profile meetings followed by Germany, United Kingdom, France and Spain.
Within the East African region, Rwanda is currently rated the leading country in hosting MICE meetings followed closely by Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.
Tourism is one of Uganda's main foreign exchange earner. The sector contributed up to 1.35 billion U.S. dollars to the export basket in 2016, and was the single highest foreign exchange earner, contributing 23.5 percent of total exports.
The sector currently employs approximately 600,000 people, but more than 150,000 additional tourism jobs are expected to be created by 2024, according to government.