•More than 160 hosted buyers from over 35 countries of Kenya’s key source markets including Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas are attending this year’s expo.
•It has also attracted more than 200 exhibitors both local and international, offering hotel, travel and tourism products and experiences.
Kenya is riding on infrastructure development and improvements at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport to market its tourism at this year’s Magical Kenya Travel Expo(MKTE).
It is also promoting signature products, regarded as highly-personalised and experience, in a push to widen the tourism sector’s offerings away from that traditional beach and safari circuit.
This comes as the country targets at least 1.4 million international visitors this year.
Tourism earnings are projected to grow by 81 per cent to Sh265.4 billion.
This is expected to further grow 35 per cent to Sh359.1 billion next year, and then a projected Sh396.1 billion the year after.
In 2024, Kenya is expected to receive the highest number ever on international tourists, projected at 2,200,448, up from 1,987, 369 next year.
Tourism CS Najib Balala on Wednesday revisited the open skies policy push, saying it is one of the ways to grow travel in the country and the continent.
“We need to open the skies so that we can be able to balance between the cost and prices. We can postpone opening the skies but we cannot avoid it,”Balala said.
South Africa and Morocco are some of the African countries that have reaped big in opening their skies.
The region and the continent also need a well-connected rail and road network to boost continental travel, as domestic and regional travel continues to support recovery of the sector.
Marketing the East African Community (EAC) is also being targeted with Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda having laid structures that will help package their products.
“We need not to look at each other as competition but rather inter-dependent to each other,” Balala said.
Some of the infrastructure the CS fronted includes the Nairobi Expressway which has eased movement around the city and the JKIA (Jomo Kenyatta International Airport).
"It takes only 15 minutes to your destination within the city, hotels and meetings,” Balala said during a briefing at Bomas of Kenya, which is hosting this year’s expo.
New terminal 1B and 1C at the JKIA are expected to be opened by November, with airlines that are currently being hosted at terminal II returning to the main facility.
China Jiangxi International Economic and Technical Cooperation (CJIC) has been undertaking the airports facelift since January last year, at a cost Sh963 million.
Plans are also underway through the National Treasury to develop a major convection center under a Public-Private Partnership initiate, as the country targets the growing MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions) business.
The country has 44 signature experiences, Tourism CS Najib Balala said yesterday, vetted by the Kenya Tourism Board.
They include Humpback Whale watching, kayaking expedition, kite surfing, mountaineering, yoga, rafting activities, vintage safari, home stays, village bike tour experience in Diani, cycling in the Mara, golfing, forest adventures, zip-lining among others.
To cement the country’s position in Africa as a preferred tourists destination, Kenya is building on marketing, experience (wider product offering) and enablers (digital space and infrastructure).
More than 160 buyers from over 35 countries of Kenya’s key source markets including Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas are attending this year’s expo, as physical meetings returns after a two-year absence occasioned by the Covid-19 pandemic.
It has also attracted more than 200 exhibitors both local and international, offering hotel, travel and tourism products and experiences.
The country has registered a steady recovery this year as international visitor arrivals between January and August grew to 924,812, as compared to 483,246 recorded in the same period in 2021.
The upsurge in the arrival numbers is attributed to the global and domestic vaccination drives that paved way for eruption of travel.
This year’s performance came with a Sh167 billion in receipts, double the Sh83 billion that was earned in a similar period last year.
“We are not where we want but we are optimistic that we shall soon go back to our all-time high and even surpass it. The year 2023 to 2024 will be for recovery,” Balala said.