Kenya aims at becoming a leading long-haul tourist destination world-wide. That way the country will be classified with other global tourism giants such as China, Malaysia and Mexico.
Currently, China receives 47 million tourists annually. Mexico follows her closely with 22 million visitors every year. Coming closer home in the African continent, Egypt is the king when it comes to tourism. South Africa tails Egypt at close range.
Kenya has a great chance to improve its standing in the tourism sector. This can only be done by introducing a new range of tourism products. Tourists need a variety in order to keep visiting now and again. This is a good strategy that can help the country in increasing tourist spending per capita. She has tried in the past to improve its strategies on international tourism marketing.
To say the least, Kenya has performed impressively in tourism since 2002. This has been reflected by an increasing number of tourist arrivals. In that year alone, the country received 1 million visitors. Four years later, in 2006 the number increased to 1.6 million. It was a good trial! That is because this increment occured amidst great obstacles. The following are some of the hudles that the sector faced:
- Health scares such as avian flu
- Skyrocketing oil prices
- Advisories against traveling to Kenya due to terrorism threats.
In 2003, Kenya earned a total of Kshs 25.8 billion from tourism. This figure increased significantly to Kshs. 56.2 billion in 2006. A large proportion of this increase is associated with well planned international adversting efforts in key foreign countries such as Britain, Italy, Germany, France and USA.
The government needs to constantly address the various problems facing the tourism sector. There is also a great need for stakeholders to expand on conference tourism and great strategies have to be put in place to increase expenditure per visit.
Government Policies
The Kenyan government must create policies that deal with negative effects in the sector. Some of the effects include: drug abuse, child prostitution and environmental degradation. The government has a role to protect her people from moral degradation. That can be achieved through promoting local cultural values instead of adopting foreign values which may be harmful.
Contribution of tourism to the economy
Tourism forms 10 per cent of the Kenyan economy and has created jobs for 9 per cent of the total workforce. It was the fasted growing sector between the years 2004 and 2006. That shows that it has played a great role in the economy of our country
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Tourism is a top earner of foreign exchange in Kenya. The country received US$800 in 2006. This is a clear sign that tourism has a great potential to not only create employment but also generate wealth.
Many visitors are attracted to Kenya by many things such as Mara Wildbeasts. This is one of the world wonders. It involves the crossing of wild beasts from Kenya to Uganda and vice versa. These are millions of animals that move at once. They form a sight to behold!
Contact the Geoffrey on: geoffrey.nyakundi13@gmail.com
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