Simon George was in Tunisia recently for Tunisia MICE Day and reflects here on the country’s renewed push into the international meetings market
Holidaymakers were not the only ones taking a dip at the 5-star Royal Azur Thalassa hotel in Hammamet in November, CMW’s Simon George found. Tunisia Convention Bureau was also keen to make a big splash by hosting its first major MICE event.
Twenty years on from its original short-lived inception at the beginning of the 2000s, Tunisia Convention Bureau (TCB) is back in the MICE game and keen to make up for lost time. Tunisia MICE Day, the TCB’s inaugural event held at the 5-star Royal Azur Thalassa hotel in Hammamet on 2 November, followed in the evening by the Tunisia MICE awards at a gala dinner at the neighbouring Sol Azur hotel, would provide the ideal vehicle to showcase what Tunisia has to offer from a MICE perspective, bringing together a mix of hotel operators, event companies and DMCs. And the fact that organisers had asked Tunisia’s tourism minister Mohamed Moez Belhassine to open the event was surely evidence of the TCB’s desire for credibility and validation that come with government participation and, more broadly speaking, its ambition to raise its MICE profile, especially internationally. The TCB and Tunisia’s government are nothing if not serious about MICE was the clear message.
As Tunisia’s tourism minister commented in his opening address to local TV: “Tunisia MICE Day is the first MICE trade show in Tunisia and all the key participants are attending. Business tourism and conferences are very important, especially in terms of the revenue they generate, as well as the contribution they make to validating Tunisia’s cultural and natural heritage. This means we attribute the utmost importance to the MICE sector and the organisation of this event. The Ministry of Tourism supports the TCB in promoting Tunisia as a MICE destination and attracting international events and congresses.”
Belhassine’s words are music to the TCB’s ears no doubt. As a private entity that has only been in existence for some nine months comprising some 20 members with a target of 40 by year end, the TCB is understandably keen to obtain government funding and operate as a public-private partnership. If the TCB’s MICE ambitions are to be realised, government buy-in will be essential.
TCB talks
I sat down with the TCB’s president, Wiem Radhouane, and vice-president, Selim Farouk Ennabli, to find out more about the convention bureau’s strategy and aspirations. “The TCB’s main purpose is to promote Tunisia as a MICE destination,” Radhouane emphasised. Tunisia is traditionally marketed as a leisure destination but now is the time for MICE. On fundamentals, it is well placed. It has ample hotel accommodation and meeting rooms to hold conferences and events, and given the country’s scenic variety as you travel north to south, the MICE offering can be diversified. Geographically, Tunisia is strategically located. “We have good connections with Europe and the Middle East. We have a very mild climate. We have the beach, we have the desert and we have great congress centres,” said Radhouane, who also highlighted Tunisia’s competitive pricing compared to other destinations – encouragement for buyers and planners to choose Tunisia for their international event.
Warming to this theme, the TCB’s vice-president added: “In Tunisia we have the infrastructure, we have nice hotels with conference centres. The tourism minister’s presence today shows there is interest in the MICE market. We have discussed with the government our plan to participate in big international events such as IMEX and IBTM, all of which requires considerable planning, preparation and, of course, funding, and how we would like to share the costs. I’m sure this collaboration will succeed. To achieve this, the TCB plans to set up a joint venture with the government.”
Permissions and potential
Aside from government funding, trying to get government authorisation to hold MICE events at the country’s archaeological sites is a key issue, both Radhouane and Ennabli said. The TCB is keen to promote Tunisia’s rich cultural heritage and the actual destination itself by staging events at famous sites such as Carthage or Dougga, for example – venues where you could put on a dinner or a concert for up to 1,000 people, say. Egypt’s MICE sector has government permission to stage such events in its country, so why not Tunisia?
Tozeur in the south of Tunisia, an oasis town on the edge of the Sahara, is a fantastic destination, according to Ennabli, with lots of potential for incentives in the desert, but there are challenges with flights connections. However, there is some good news on this front – the Dutch low-cost carrier Transavia, part of Air France-KLM, has just started flying from Paris Orly to Tozeur via Tunis. “It’s a start,” noted Ennabli.
Data learning
Inevitably, as a convention bureau in its infancy, the TCB for all its laudable ambition is facing a number of growing pains, many of them digital. Apart from the funding and regulatory issues already touched on, the bureau says it needs help collating and extrapolating statistical information on MICE markets. “We don’t have numbers on the size of the MICE market, revenue figures etc.,” Ennabli said. As such, digitisation and digitilasation are areas it needs to embrace and quickly, one senses. “To grow the MICE market, we need companies that can help with online registration, that can measure the impact of an event in terms of how many people come, the revenue they generate, for example,” Ennabli said.
CMW’s man in Tunis, Simon George (second from left)
Team Tunisia
Tunisia is well placed in terms of hotel infrastructure, Ennabli reiterated. However, one of the key aims of Tunisia MICE Day is to promote the TCB as an entity not just to the big hotels and tour operators, but to all players in the MICE market – for example, to suppliers such as companies renting out AV equipment, printers, transport companies etc., which is good news for the whole economy, Ennabli stressed.
As far as TCB plans for the future go, Ennabli said: “We would like to grow, expand our offices, have permanent employees and be more active in the MICE market. We would like Tunisia MICE Day to become an annual event, get bigger year by year and we want to be present at the two flagship MICE events IMEX and IBTM.”
Radhouane added that she hoped Tunisia would be able to host big international trade shows and more big events – pharmaceutical, for example. We also hope for more investment for congress centres that can host a thousand people or more and that we can host more events at the country’s archaeological sites.”
The TCB hopes to be at IMEX in Frankfurt next May, said Radhouane who was present at IBTM in November 2023 as an exhibitor with euromic rather than representing the TCB.
In terms of leisure tourist arrivals, France, Germany, Italy and Spain are Tunisia’s main markets. However, Ennabli added wistfully: “We would like the British to return in numbers to Tunisia… to come back for summer holidays, for business, participate in events, consider Tunisia as a competitive destination. We miss the British.”
And the winner is…
Tunisia MICE Day culminated in a wide array of MICE awards being handed out at a gala evening of live music and lavish food. Fours Seasons Hotel Tunis scooped up the award for Best MICE hotel, with Laico Tunis scooping up the prize for best MICE city business hotel. Best DMC was awarded to Top Events with Alice Events in second place, while the jury’s special prizes for sustainable tourism and Saharan tourism went to Iberostar and Anantara Tozeur Resort & Villas respectively.
