Nairobi — The Kenya Tourist Board has now turned to online marketing to rope in visitors and create an avenue around its perennial limited financial options.

The decision by the board has been taken in what it termed a cost-effective way of meeting its targets as well as being competitive in the industry.

According to managing director Robert Ndegwa, the board's websites are available in several international languages so as to reach a wider variety of people.

"Financing our marketing and publicity programmes has always been a major challenge owing to inadequate funding compared to competition. We, therefore, had to look at the most cost-effective and efficient ways of reaching our markets," said Mr Ndegwa.

Among the languages that the board's website is currently hosting include Japanese, Gujarati, Chinese and Russian.

This, it is believed, will help them in the new marketing strategy targeting increased numbers.

"This hitherto un-exploited markets have shown significant growth since we announced our presence and the future looks promising," he said.

Mr Ndegwa spoke during the release of the tourism sector performance statistics.

Traditionally, Kenya has continued to source for tourists from the United Kingdom, Canada, United States, France and Italy.

As a result, most of KTB's marketing programmes have been inclined towards these destinations.