Africa's Biggest CX Stage Moves to Dar es Salaam — With Zanzibar as the Encore

Even before delegates have packed their black-tie outfits for this month's gathering in Sandton, the Chartered Institute of Customer Management has already answered the question every CX professional on the continent will ask next: where to in 2027?

The answer is Tanzania. The Annual African Customer Experience Conference and Awards will mark its landmark 10th edition in Dar es Salaam from 18 to 20 August 2027, CICM has confirmed a milestone made more significant by the road the conference has travelled to get there.

The gathering was forced into hiatus in 2020 as COVID-19 shut down international travel and large events across the continent. It stayed dormant for five years before returning in 2025 in Botswana, where delegates from 15 countries reconvened to rebuild the conference's momentum. This year's 9th edition in Sandton, under the theme "Connect and Thrive: The Digital Experience Revolution," has pushed attendance back up past 200 delegates from more than 19 countries a clear signal the recovery is holding.

“We expect the conference to continue to grow to meet our former numbers and benchmark,” said CICM CEO Ricky Harris, pointing to the pre-pandemic scale the event is working to reclaim. Choosing Tanzania for the anniversary edition, he added, reflects the country's strategic positioning and its rising profile in customer experience conversations across East Africa.

Dar es Salaam beat out a genuinely competitive shortlist. Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, and Zambia had all put themselves forward to host the 10th anniversary edition proof of how much currency CX leadership now carries across African capitals.

There's a sweetener built into the itinerary, too. Delegates will have the option to extend their stay and cross to Zanzibar on the conference's final day, pairing boardroom conversation with one of the Indian Ocean's most iconic coastlines. For a conference that has never treated networking and hospitality as afterthoughts, the Zanzibar add-on fits naturally.

At the centre of every edition sits the Awards Gala, and 2027 will follow the same structure even as the location changes. Individual excellence is recognised through the Africa CX Leadership Awards, crowning the continent's standout Chief Customer Officers and CX directors. Organisations compete for the Africa Service Excellence Awards, the corporate-level recognition that has become a genuine badge of honour across banking, telecoms, hospitality, and retail.

Underpinning it all is a credibility architecture few industry conferences can match: the endorsement of more than nine industry associations, alongside the African Council of Customer Experience Organisation, a continental body developing CX standards, publishing research, and advocating for customer-centric policy across Africa's fragmented regulatory landscape.

Five years after COVID silenced it, the conference is not just back it's aiming higher, with Tanzania set to host its biggest test yet of how far the recovery has come.