What international meetings are worth to an African capital and what a convention centre has to carry to win them, from Cairo, Marrakech and Abidjan to Nairobi, Kigali and Cape Town.
Also available in French: Congrès et réunions en Afrique: Le prix d’un siège en plénière. Choose the language when you request the report.
The report in six numbers
Africa's share of the 12,438 international association meetings ICCA counted worldwide in its 2025 rankings, roughly 250 to 370 meetings a year
complex cost per plenary seat at Kigali: US$300m for the 2,600-seat convention centre, a 292-room hotel and an office park (Heirstone analysis)
FY2023/24 EBITDA: the multiple implied by Cape Town's R885m desktop valuation of its 72.7% CTICC stake, or about US$69m for the whole company pro rata
revenue per international event against revenue per national event at Durban ICC in FY2021/22 and FY2022/23, the last two years reported
hotel rooms per plenary seat at Kigali's attached hotel, the bottom of the 0.11 to 0.34 range offered by the hotels attached to Africa's halls
final attendance at COP27, Sharm El Sheikh, 2022, the largest COP to that date, against 5,000 seats in Africa's largest verified plenary
In brief
We assembled public data on 31 named convention venues in 18 African countries, from Cairo, Marrakech and Lagos to Nairobi, Kigali and Cape Town, and scored 12 meeting cities on five gates. Africa's newest flagship complexes cost US$80,000 to US$115,000 per plenary seat, while the best documented convention business is valued at a fraction of that. A hall pays back through its share of international events and through spending in its city, so the decisions that matter most are made outside it.
ICCA counted 12,438 international association meetings in its 2025 rankings and puts Africa at 2 to 3%, roughly 250 to 370 meetings. South Africa hosted 98 in 2024. Kenya's 987 "international conferences" of 2024 averaged about 38 international delegates, against 717 per ICCA meeting in Cape Town.
At Durban ICC an international event earned about 11 times the revenue of a national one in FY2021/22 and FY2022/23. In the later year 22 international events, one in twenty, earned 36% of event revenue.
The Kigali complex, with its hotel and offices, cost US$300m for 2,600 seats, and the AU centre and office tower US$200m for 2,505. Cape Town's valuation of its CTICC stake implies about US$69m for the whole company, 15 times FY2023/24 EBITDA and under a quarter of Kigali's cost.
Durban ICC went from a R43m profit to a R63.8m loss in FY2017/18 after a R57.6m rates-linked impairment of its building. KICC's receivables overdue by over three years, mostly from ministries, were KES 623m in FY2018/19, about 61% of revenue, according to Kenya's Auditor-General.
Filling Kigali's 2,600 seats would take about 1,690 hotel rooms a night, against 1,500-plus upper-range rooms in the whole of Rwanda. Cairo, Africa's busiest airport, reaches 130 non-stop destinations, yet Egypt scores 0.109 on the Africa Visa Openness Index, while Rwanda admits all Africans visa-free.
On public evidence Cape Town and Nairobi pass three of the five gates: reach, entry, rooms, venue and engine. Six of the 12 cities publish no figure for hotel rooms within reach of the plenary.
What it means
Run a host city test before commissioning a hall, open visas first and price the full public cost of the building, land and rates included.
Report international delegate-days and the share of international events alongside any count of conferences.
Separate ownership of the building from its operation and underwrite on international share.
Size rooms from a venue's forward book of delegate-days and treat summit peaks as one-offs.
Inside the full report
Heirstone datasets
venues in the Heirstone Convention Centre Benchmark, drawn from a register of 31 named venues in 18 African countries
African meeting cities scored on the five gates of the Heirstone Host City Test: reach, entry, rooms, venue and engine
Built from public sources current at October 2026. Every figure is referenced in the report, and figures we derive by combining published numbers are labelled Heirstone analysis.
Africa's newest flagship complexes cost US$80,000 to US$115,000 per plenary seat, hotels and offices included. The Kigali complex cost US$300m for a 2,600-seat hall with a 292-room hotel and offices, while Durban's divisible arena cost about US$2,500 a seat at 2024 rates.
Roughly 250 to 370 international association meetings a year. ICCA counted 12,438 worldwide in its 2025 rankings and puts Africa's share at 2 to 3%. South Africa hosted 98 in 2024 and Cape Town 58.
On the Heirstone Host City Test, Cape Town and Nairobi pass three of five gates and no city passes all five. Kigali ranks second in Africa for ICCA meetings with open visas and a short route map, while Addis Ababa, Cairo and Casablanca have the widest air reach.
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