The Africa Hotel Investment Forum (AHIF) will return to the Sheraton Hotel, Addis Ababa in the last week of September, 23-25, 2019. AHIF was previously held in Ethiopia’s capital city in 2014 and 2015; the following two years, the conference moved to Kigali and last year to Nairobi. For the past 15 years, Ethiopia has been blazing an impressive trail when it comes to economic performance, with GDP growth being in the high single digits. According to the IMF, Ethiopia’s current GDP growth rate is 8.5%, surpassing every other country in Africa, except Libya. Its tourism sector has been growing strongly too, aided by enlightened immigration policies. Last November, Ethiopia relaxed its visa regulations to enable all Africans to gain a visa on arrival and, later in the same month, Addis Ababa’s Bole International Airport overtook Dubai as the main gateway to Sub Saharan Africa. Three months later, in February 2019, a new airport terminal building was opened, doubling capacity to 22 million passengers a year. By moving location every year or two, AHIF provides direct economic benefits to various African cities. A recent economic study by Grant Thornton revealed that hosting AHIF brings, on average, $1m in direct benefit to the local economy, an additional $1.4m in indirect benefit and a substantial six-figure sum in tax to the government. AHIF is organised by the global event organiser Bench Events, which has a long track record of delivering multiple premium hotel investment conferences and forums across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America. Earlier this year, Bench launched the Forum de l’Investissement Hôtelier Africain (FIHA), a sister event to AHIF, designed to appeal to the Francophone countries of North and West Africa, in a bid to develop their economies and support hotel and hospitality investment. AHIF is the premier hotel investment conference in Africa, attracting many prominent international hotel owners, investors, financiers, management companies and their advisers.

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