State to map tourist attraction sites

Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife and Heritage is working on a conceptual framework to map Kenya’s tourist attraction sites and re-invigorate the sector that is rising from the Covid-19 pandemic slump.

Data will be collected from the 47 counties and will be used by the Kenya Tourism Board (KTB) to leverage their “unique selling points to enable the marketing agency to attract more tourists,” Tourism Principal Secretary John Ololtuaa said.

Kenya offers beach holidays along its Indian Ocean coastline and wildlife Safaris inland.

Ololtua said in addition to the traditional products, the country can also leverage its diverse culture, sports and cuisine to attract more visitors and shore up the sector’s numbers.

“For instance, we now have a phenomenon called the twin migration currently ongoing; the wildebeest migration at the Mara and whale migration in Watamu all happening at the same time,” he added.

Tourism is one of Kenya’s leading sources of Foreign Exchange earners. Last year, arrivals surged 83 per cent to Sh228 billion from 1.2 million arrivals as Covid-19 pandemic curbs eased.

KTB expects arrivals to increase 37 per cent to 1.65 million this year.