Kenya seeks association of hoteliers for tourism marketing campaigns

Kenya tourism seeks the help of hotliers for driving the marketing campaign of the country.  Najib Balala, Tourism secretary has met with hotliers to discuss the marketing programmes.

Top hoteliers of the country have been appointed by the tourism secretary to help with the development of tourism by formulating marketing strategies for a sector that suffered a series of terrorism attacks, which discouraged foreign tourists to visit the country for several years.

The hoteliers have to feed the Kenya Tourist Board (KTB) with the new trends in Kenya’s tourism sector to help promote the country as business and leisure travel destinations.

Among the executives picked for the coast working group are Mohammed Hersi (Pollmans Tours & Travels), Bobby Kamani (Diani Reef), Rakhee Kantaria (Leisure Lodge), Sheema Merali (Neptune Hotels), Alnoor Kanji (English Point Marina) and Hasnain Noorani (Pride Inn).

Kenya’s tourism strategy is multi-faceted, giving emphasis to product development, beach strategy, infrastructure and marketing.

Kenya receives more than a million visitors annually from countries such as China, Germany, France and Britain who are attracted by big game safaris and sandy white beaches, especially in Diani.

“The Ministry of Tourism and KTB, along with the private sector needs to work closely together to launch an independent international, domestic and digital marketing campaign for Destination Diani,” said Bobby Kamani from Diani Reef.

“The private sector needs to be involved in the conceptualisation and implementation of tourism strategy,” added Kamani.

The sector working groups will be meeting monthly with the ministry and KTB to track progress of the collective works.

As per forecasts by the tourism authorities, Kenya is likely to earn 15 per cent more this year from tourism as the number of visitors grows by 17 to 18 per cent. The country had 1.47 million tourists last year and earned USD 1.17 billion from their visits.

The forecast was based on a growing local market and new daily, direct flights to New York by Kenya Airways, which will attract more American tourists.

Recently Kenya has started daily direct flights to New York and it is expected that this will contribute to the growth of the country, as more American tourists are likely to arrive.

Tourism is one of the top foreign exchange earners of the country, other than agricultural exports and remittance by Kenyans living abroad.