Nairobi — Mombasa council has launched an exchange programme with a US city to promote tourism.

Town Clerk Tubman Otieno said that apart from tourism, the exchange programme with Long Beach, California, would tackle other issues such as sanitation, water, health, the environment and how to cope with disasters such as fire.

He said that last February, he led a delegation to Long Beach, where they learnt a lot on planning of cities.

"We learnt that Long Beach city had 23 fire stations and that all the firefighters go through an eight-year training course," Mr Otieno said.

"The council suffered a loss of Sh50 million when a fire engine was razed by some irresponsible people," he added.

The clerk made the remarks at Town Hall when a delegation of officials from Long Beach paid mayor Ahmed Mohdhar a courtesy call.Mr Mohdhar received a consignment of books donated by Long Beach residents.

The mayor said some of the books would be donated to the local public library, while the rest will be kept for the council's staff to use. Mr Otieno said the council will soon establish its own library.

The Long Beach-Mombasa Sister Cities Association chairman Bill Preston said they brought in some HIV testing kits to help the council in its HIV and Aids campaign. The association was also looking into the possibility of supporting Mombasa provide drugs to local residents living with Aids, he said.

Elsewhere, the Malindi and Watamu Tourist Association has launched a programme to lure tourists to the area.

The programme targets tourists by-passing the Coast on their way to Zanzibar. This is expected to check Zanzibar's dominance over Malindi in the scramble for Italian tourists.

In a joint press conference with Malindi mayor Samson Mapinga in his office yesterday, Italy's consul in Malindi Roberto Macri said there were challenges to the programme, which the local council has to address.

"Lighting, roads and beach security have to be improved," Mr Macri said.

Mr Mapinga said the council had initiated a street lighting programme to cover the Malindi-Mombasa road to the airport.

The programme will also cover the beach line and other major streets.