Sh50m deal to market Kenya
The Source: coastweek.com/hadhramaut.info - 10/4/2009
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Kenya Tourist Board (KTB) and Kenya Airways will
will partner in a new Kshs 50 million marketing campaign to promote Kenya’s tourist attractions in Africa.Tourism Minister Najib Balala, while making the announcement during a gala dinner hosted for over 150 tour operators, travel agents, and journalists from across Africa who have been touring Kenya’s tourist sites for the last one week, termed the new initiative timely in increasing tourist arrivals from the continent."We want to generate new business from Africa as opposed to our existing source markets and we feel this initiative will encourage growth in intra-regional tourism," said the Tourism Minister.The marketing campaign, Balala noted, targets all the 30 destinations that Kenya Airways plies.Balala further explained that the Kenya Airways and KTB will each contribute Kshs 25 million towards the initiative which will involve organizing more familiarization trips for African travel agents as well as increasing the country’s tourism products visibility through advertising in both print and electronic media channels and through the internet."Regional markets have the potential to involve regional operators including airlines, tour operators and others therefore reducing the level of the leakages associated with International markets," added Balala. KTB Chairman Jake Grieves-Cook said:"We are trying to diversify our source markets."Off course this strategy may not translate in immediate results but we should start seeing results in the course of the year."Despite the huge potential of the African Market, tourist inflows into Kenya from Africa currently account for only 20 per cent of total tourist arrivals annually, with most of them arriving from South Africa.Cook also revealed that the Kenyan tourism ministry was engaging colleagues in the foreign affairs ministry and other relevant agencies in government to help fast-track the visa application process for African visitors as part of efforts to entice more tourist inflows from Africa.Kenya Airways Chief Executive Officer Titus Naikuni, said:"We both felt it was an opportune time to invest in Kenyan tourism. "Our integrated campaign will heighten interest in the destinations we travel to and by spreading the net wider through advertising and internet initiatives; we will be providing valuable marketing for destination Kenya."The travel agents, tour operators and journalists visited several tourist attractions around the county including the Maasai Mara Game Reserve, Samburu National Park, Amboseli Game Reserve and the Kenyan coast between 2nd and 7th April.The week-long Familiarization trip marks an important strategy towards profiling Kenya’s tourism products and services and was organized by Kenya Airways in partnership with the Kenya Association of Hotel Keepers and Caterers (KAHC), Kenya Association of Tour Operators (KATO) and KTB.
The three partnering institutions met costs for the trip with Kenya Airways providing return air tickets to all the delegates from each of the countries, while KAHC covered accommodation costs.This is the second time within a span of two years that Kenya Airways is partnering with tourism stakeholders to boost arrivals into the country following last year’s initiative where the airline was involved in a similar marketing exercise to redeem the country’s image in the face of the 2007 post-election violence which scared off visitors
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