State working on plans to boost annual tourist arrivals to 5 million
By Alvin Mwangi, August 29, 2024Tourism and Wildlife Cabinet Secretary Rebecca Miano says her ministry is working towards increasing tourist arrivals to 5 million people by 2027, up from the current 2 million.
Miano who spoke during a meeting with officials from the Kenya Tourism Federation and Kenya Tourist Guides said that partnerships with various players in the sector would help the country raise its revenue from tourism from the current Sh352 billion to about Sh824 billion annually.
“My commitment is to build synergies with the private sector to develop a common approach in transforming the tourism sector to be the number one contributor of foreign exchange earnings, job creation and GDP growth,” she said.
She added: “As a Ministry, we applaud the private sector contribution and partnerships in hosting and participating in local and international events, marketing campaigns, policy advocacy, developing innovative tourism products and market intelligence sharing.”
Miano revealed that going forward, her ministry was working to develop the National Tourism Strategy and other initiatives that will help boost domestic tourism.
“We will work together to develop incentives on affordable travel and accommodation to support the growth of our domestic tourism. As a ministry we are developing an annual calendar of tourism events and we will be enhancing our synergies to partner and ensure we have all year-round events promoting domestic tourism. We will soon be inviting you to launch the “tembea Kenya” campaign,” she said.
She said the government will use the upcoming UN World Tourism Day set for September 27 to promote domestic tourism.
“We will be celebrating the UN World Tourism Day on September 27th, 2024 which we want to optimize as a key strategy towards promoting domestic and international tourism. We have already engaged the various counties to bid for the hosting of the event. Additionally, we will champion the celebration of the day in all the counties,” she said.
The CS assured the stakeholders that she has taken note of the issues, recommendations, and suggestions they raised with her predecessors, pointing out that some are still work in progress.