Dennis Onyango
11 July 2004
Nairobi — Kenya's Sh42 billion-a-year tourism industry is on the rise again after years of gloom. Arrivals are way up, and the Kenya Tourism Board fears that there could be accommodation problems by the end of next month.
Months of massive promotional campaigns in the European Union and Asian markets, which consumed more than Sh500 million are beginning to pay dividends.
The KTB says the arrivals, particularly from the Asian market, are expected to rise further when another promotional drive that kicks off in China in November begins.
At the same time, Raitt Orr and Associates Limited, a UK-based Government and Public Relations consultancy that has been pushing Kenya's case abroad says more British tourists can be expected to travel to Kenya after Britain released new guidelines on the issuance of negative travel warnings.
"By the end of July and towards mid-August, we will be sufficiently busy. If this trend is sustained, and it will be, we may be having problems with accommodation soon," KTB chairman Raymond Matiba said.
Figures from KTB show that despite travel advisories, tourism arrivals have been improving from last year and peaked last month with figures rising more than two times.
Kenya Tourism Board public relations manager Rose Kwena says arrivals have been going up by about 3 per cent since January. In March, the arrivals were up by more than 3 per cent over the same period last year. Arrivals in April were 8 per cent higher than the same time last year.
Last May came with higher figures that seemed beyond expectation, recording more than 26 per cent more arrivals than during the same period last year.
June recorded about 60 per cent rise in tourist arrivals over the same period last year.
"We are not doing badly in terms of arrivals. We can confidently say things are good. For once, we are seeing the fruits of our labour. We are doing well," Kwena said.
The rising of Kenya's tourism from the ashes of two terrorist attacks and numerous travel alerts from long-standing Western partners puts the country within the overall global picture in which short-term tourism data for the first months of 2004 confirmed the upward trend that began at the end of 2003.
The latest issue of the World Tourism Organisation assessment of the industry worldwide says confidence in travel is rising.
The World Tourism Barometer, published by the World Tourism Organisation at the end of June shows that long-haul travel is finally picking-up, particularly out of Europe.
The Kenya Tourism Board last week told the Sunday Standard that after concerted tourism marketing programmes in the European Union and Asia, tourists' confidence in Kenya is picking up.
"There are a lot of European countries in which people saw Kenya and what we have to offer for the first time on TV when we embarked on promotions recently. It is beginning to pay back," Kwena said.
The Asian market, which Kenya turned to as a way of compensating for the dwindling European market, has risen steadily to fill the gap.
January 2003 saw 4,275 tourists arriving from the Asian market. The figure rose to more than 5,000 last January. The arrivals from Asia remained constant in February 2003. Last February, the figure rose to more than 4,000.
More than 3,000 tourists arrived from Asia in April 2003. Last April, the number rose to more than 5,000, according to data provided by the KTB.
May last year recorded 3,642 tourist arrivals. This May, the number rose to 5,000. Last June, tourist arrivals from the Asian market stood at about 4,000. Last June recorded more than 5,000 tourists from Asia.
"We expect the numbers to go higher, especially after we hosted the Miss Hong Kong Beauty Contest here," Kwena said.
The arrivals from Asia, especially China, are also expected to rise after a 30-episode drama series, The Last Breakthrough, by the KTB begins to show in China. The drama was shot early last month featuring medical volunteers saving lives in the developing world.
The drama will be aired to more than 100 million viewers in Southern China at prime time for more than one hour every day from November. It will run for more than a month.
The drama gives prominence to Kenya's vast natural landscape, the white beaches of Mombasa, the wildlife and the ethnic lifestyles of Kenya.
"The Miss Hong Kong show gave Kenya a lot of publicity that is still running. The drama series will give us more. We target the same media that we focused on with the beauty show," the KTB official said. The Miss Hong Kong show attracted 26 local Chinese and foreign media who travelled with the beauty contestants and filmed their activities on location.
Kwena discounted suggestions that the figures would have been better if the travel advisories had been lifted. "The advisories were a wake-up call for us. They made us do more. But I don't think the situation would have been different."
She said arrivals from African countries are also rising, with Africa being Kenya's fourth source of tourists now.
"We are sustaining our traditional markets. But we are also getting a lot of visitors from within Africa and we will pursue that, too. Every month, the numbers are going up," Kwena said.
Promotions aside, Matiba said the country is also reaping the fruits of improved security put in place since the travel alerts hit the industry hard.
For more than a year now, he said, the Government has moved to secure its borders and tighten airport security by replacing radar and security equipment.
He also cited the creation of a tourism police unit and the setting up of a tourism safety and communication centre to respond to emergencies involving tourists. "We will keep doing everything we can to ensure even greater security measures for our visitors and citizens alike," Matiba said.
In the UK, Raitt Orr predicted a rise in tourist arrivals in Kenya after a concerted campaign forced the British Government to limit travel warnings.
Information from the organisation indicated that Britain would issue travel warnings to a country only if the threat was "extreme and imminent".
Accused of damaging the tourism markets of nations like Kenya that desperately rely on the industry, Britain last month said it would make sure it did not do "the terrorists'" work for them buy causing too much of the disruption which they seek."
Major media outlets quoted the Foreign Office saying: "In future, in case of intelligence-based terrorist threats, we shall advise against travel only in situations of extreme and imminent danger, if the terrorist threat is sufficiently specific, large scale or endemic to affect British nationals severely."
A Foreign Office warning against "non-essential travel" results in tour operators pulling out and refunding those yet to travel.
Those already abroad have to be evacuated and compensated while independent travellers withdraw because insurers suspend their cover. The UK travel advice goes out to 250,000 people a week.
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