KENYA Special Report
For years, the Kenyan sightseeing
sector was dependent on and solely associated with its stunning wildlife on the Kenyan savannah, beaches, in the mountains and across the scenic Rift Valley landscape. The “Big Five Safari” (a marketing
concept for the elephant, lion, buffalo, leopard and rhino) was a must-do for tourists. This catchphrase, a Kenyan invention, sold Kenya’s communities as living in harmony with wildlife and highlighted Kenya’s globally acclaimed conservation models. This unique aspect of Kenya’s tourism
industry certainly received a big boost when the inimitable great wildebeest migration in the Serengeti-Maasai Mara Game Reserve was declared “the seventh wonder of the world” by experts on the US TV channel ABC in 2006. To cap the wildlife safari, Kenya’s popular coastal beach resorts wrapped up many tourism itineraries. Fully acknowledging that the tourism
industry has been a key sector and a major foreign exchange earner after agriculture, the Kenyan government is realigning it so as to cater for new demands and ward off competition from countries with similar offers. The stiff competition and fickleness of tourism during the global financial crunch have forced the country’s tourism technocrats to adopt new skills to market the country. Kenya has changed its approach to selling the tourism sector, even though the country’s sometimes
62 | April 2011 New African
“Kenya has been a
tourism leader and has pioneered products that are world-class. The country has a great asset base.”
tumultuous politics get in the way, which is something Balala recognises: “Let us tone down politics. If we play our politics in a more civil way, we will be able to balance our economy, our image and the game of politics itself.” Hitherto, tourism was seen as an
exclusive market open only to a select few. This situation has now changed significantly. With the repositioning of the coalition government, the best talent from the private sector has been sourced to re-engineer the tourism pillar, one of the Vision 2030 key cornerstones. Management guru Michael Joseph, who
steered mobile phone company Safaricom from scratch to become one of East Africa’s best telecommunications companies, was headhunted to lead the marketing arm of the state-run Kenya Tourist Board (KTB), from December 2010. “I hope to make Kenya a destination
of choice for everyone…My goal is to make Kenya an even more magical destination for the rest of the world and to reach out to
Top: Jennifer Oppondo, director of marketing for the Kenya Tourist Board, addresses the media Above: Tourism Minister Najib Balala (left) with Prime Minister Raila Odinga
new source markets,” he says. With the reengineering of KTB, other
state agencies within the tourism ministry, notably, Kenya Tourism Development Corporation (KTDC), which provides financial support to investors in the sector, Kenya Utalii College (KUC), which trains personnel in the sector, and Bomas of Kenya (BoK), which showcases all of Kenya’s ethnic groupings, are also being revamped to meet emerging demands.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92