Old policy ailing tourism

Arguably the most developed destination in Sub-Saharan Africa, Kenya has
been a force to reckon with in the African tourism industry, a position it
is now set to lose to South Africa.

Despite having a national tourism Master plan, Kenya does not have a sound
tourism policy and tourism development remains haphazard. It is against this
background that Kenya's top tourism destination areas are located in
Coastal and Maasailand regions, yet the whole country has a potential for
tourism development.

Successive legislations have seen the development of game reserves and
national parks to protect wildlife and to promote organized recreational
activities such as game hunting, a development that has excluded the local
communities from tourism affairs. The upshot is that there has been no
trickle down effect in the country's tourist destinations.

Notably, little effort has been made to align tourism to global
developments, with the existing model of development being based on the
infamous "Safari" of the American president Theodore Roosevelt in 1900s, for
an elite ex-metropolitan European clientele.

Admittedly, Western Europe remains the prime tourist market, with real
control of tourism resources vested in the hands of few western investors,
whose main interests are profit motivated. Consequently, tourism has never
been developed "by Kenyans for Kenyans".

Foreigners own tourism establishments, hence the development agenda has been
skewed in favour of external interests. Whereas the World Trade Organisation
[WTO] emphasizes the importance of linkages of tourism revenue, in Kenya the
linkages within the industry are low. Instead, the industry experiences high
leakages in terms of repatriation of profits, employment of foreign
expatriates, purchase of goods from abroad and use of foreign owned
airlines.

Besides, Kenya relies on external initiatives by funding agencies such as
the Japan International Corporation Agency (JICA) and the European Union to
fund tourism development projects.

As a result of leakages, very limited resources are left behind for tourism
development. Nothing illustrates this point better than the data from IMF,
which cites high poverty levels in the coastal and Maasailand tourism
regions, a clear indicator to the fact that tourism has not alleviated
poverty in these regions.

In contrast, central Province - which is mainly agricultural area - has
fewer levels of poverty, as the local people exercise a considerable amount
of ownership, influence and control.

Whereas Kenya relies mostly on wildlife and coastal tourism, the reality is
that unlike Egypt's pyramids, for instance, these products are not unique
and can be substituted in consumer destination choice-sets. Consequently,
Kenya is facing stiff competition from South Africa, Namibia, Zambia,
Botswana and Tanzania for foreign tourists.

Industry experts argue that for Kenya to survive in the increasingly
volatile industry, it must put in place measures to enhance domestic and
regional tourism. Whereas domestic and regional tourism campaigns are
already underway, their success will largely hinge on the change of attitude
by hoteliers and tour operators, who often treat local tourists with disdain
and contempt.

Besides, the country's tourism officials have the onus of stemming bad
publicity and media bias, which continue to haunt the industry. It is
noteworthy that the crises in Rwanda, Burundi and the DRC has also fuelled
bad publicity for Kenya, partly due to limited geographical understanding of
Africa within the tourist source regions.

It did not help matters that just as the industry was trying to recover from
the travel advisories, it was thrown into further crisis when Touristik
Union International (TUI) UK - the world's largest tour operator - cancelled
its bookings for the 2003-2004 winter season. The cancellations - effected
mid October and coming at the beginning of the high tourism season in
Kenya - are likely to send the wrong signals to other travel managers.

TUI cited the recent travel advisories as the reason for the move. But the
decision by TUI only reinforces recent cautions by Thomas Cook - the second
largest tour firm in the world. When the group's Vice President Wim Demet
visited the coastal town of Mombasa in August, his message was loud and
clear: "We should never forget that a holiday destination without security,
without a feeling of safety for visitors is dead", he said with finality.

What cannot be gainsaid, however, is that Kenya's tourism industry currently
suffers a crisis of perception. While Kenyans think of the country as a safe
and hospitable destination, it is what the industry's traditional markets of
the US and western Europe believe that counts.

Though the World Markets Research Centre in a study "Global Terrorism Index"
published in the August issue of "The Economist" gave Kenya a competitive
security rating, Americans and Europeans still believe the country is not
safe.

No doubt, the Kenya Tourist Board still has the onerous task of marketing
the country as a safe tourist destination. But it will surely take a long
time before the industry regains its lost glory.