When our founder Patryk Ciechocinski was launching the Conference.place platform late in 2015, everything was a little bit foggy about what to expect in this new yet surprisingly unique concept. It was more of a hypothesis testing adventure. The idea was simple. To provide potential conference or meeting organizers with a wide choice of event & conferencing venues from which they can compare based on their preferences. To make it more efficient, we decided to relieve off our customers the most daunting task of having to do the compares & contrasts, therefore saving time. So, when receiving an inquiry our team researches the best options and on competing bids basis provides you with the best value.
A year later, the concept has taken its roots in Kenya and everything now looks a bit clearer with an in-depth understanding of the Kenyan MICE market and its challenges. While we know we still have a long way to go to achieve this dream of better value for our customers, we couldn’t have achieved this without the support of our esteemed customers. Here is what we are most proud of in 2016
1.A First Anniversary
Even though the platform was first launched in November 2016, we did our first anniversary celebrations this month to end the year in style. Throughout the year, we have had our portion of our challenges & successes. We attribute everything we are today to our loving clients and cooperative partners and for that reason, a big thank you and cheers to achieving many more milestones together.
2.Topping Search Engines within 4 months
The world has moved on from the analog way of doing things. More so in Africa, where the growth of the online business is growing way faster than anticipated. With that in mind, we realized that we needed to not only be on the web but be found on the web for keywords with intent by our customers. Typically, the best way to do this without burning out the marketing resources was to embark on a comprehensive Search Engine Optimization (SEO). In May 2016, we hired a young & ambitious Digital Marketing Intern (Mwangi Wanjiru) to help us achieve this objective. Even with little experience, his drive and desire to learn were what helped us achieve top search engine positions for the most sought after keywords in the Kenyan MICE industry. In the light, we have seen a tremendous increase in traffic and conversions rates from our platform since August 2016.
3. 94 Conferences organized and counting……
We have managed to organize, facilitate and even distribute 93 conferences to our partner hotels so far. This, however, includes our repeat customers who loved our services to a point of coming back. Like we have emphasized before, we take a great deal amount of time to research, present and even assist our customers to choose the best venues based on their preferences and budget. This is part of what has helped our business to grow rapidly over the past few months. Even though we may tweak our business model a little bit, we intend to keep our services customer-centric at all times
4. Publishing the ultimate Guide for MICE
Searching through the internet for something so differentiated & customized like conferencing can be very frustrating sometimes. We have been in business for a year or so and we know how scattered the information is which makes it time-consuming when looking for something as easy as a business trip checklist or finding your way around the cities & venues. So we made an ultimate guide for conferencing in Nairobi & Kenya as well to save time for our customers. That was hours & hours of research but we are glad we came up with something to last for long.
5. Unveiling our Favorite Conference Partner
We have worked with many partners in this industry and whereas most of them are cooperative and helpful to our guests, we have been doing a secret evaluation to see who is most loved by our customers. Based on many factors like the knowledge of the product, customer services, Meal experiences, equipment’s available and technical support, Golden Tulip Hotel in Westlands is our top pick for conferencing in Nairobi & Kenya in 2016. This is not to mean that others are bad, no, we value each and every one of our partners and we take considerations
Having said that, there is no doubt that 2017 is very promising. We plan to introduce new exciting concepts now that we have reached an important milestone and achieved a new momentum in redefining the way conferences are booked in Kenya.
Happy Holidays to all our dear customers & patners.