Hundreds of tourists and residents of Lamu island took part in this year’s 30th edition of the annual Lamu Dhow race in Shella beach on Saturday.
The colourful event organised to celebrate the New Year saw the ‘Prince’ dhow navigated by captain Ali Shee win the highly contested race.
Ten crews took part in this year’s race. This is the fourth consecutive win by Prince.
The winning captain said he looked forward to more years of staying in control of the race and more wins.
“I am grateful. It was tough considering the unpredictable winds but together with my team, we made it to the top. We hope to keep winning in future races,” Ali said.
The second place in the race was taken by the Zayyar dhow which is navigated by captain Mohamed Baka and crew.
Third place was taken by ‘Uhuru’ dhow navigated by Mohamed Bwanamkuu.
This year’s race was organised by Peponi Hotel in conjunction with the county’s tourism stakeholders.
Speaking during the event, Lamu Tourism Caucus chairperson Abdallah Fadhil said the plan is to invest more in such events to boost the tourism sector.
He said Lamu tourism sector was on the track to recovery, adding that by the end of 2021, the sector had already hit 60 per cent performance.
He however blamed the various restrictions announced by the government, especially after the Omicron variant hit the country, for contributing to the cancellation of many bookings by international tourists in Lamu.
“The expectation had been to reach 70 per cent by end of 2021 but we did 60 per cent and we are okay. We want to focus on such events so that we slowly grow back the sector,” Fadhil said.
Lamu County Tourism Executive Josephat Musembi said his department had already initiated plans to undertake a digital marketing campaign to attract inbound visitors to Lamu.
He noted that a special tourism management plan on how best the region can be marketed both domestically and internationally is in place.
He said a series of online advertisements is also ongoing to link up the available Lamu tourist attraction sites to internal and international markets.
“We are focused on making Lamu a top-of-mind destination for local and international visitors. The opening of the Lamu Port and operationalisation of the Boni-Dodori reserve present us with a huge chance for new tourism and investment opportunities,” Musembi said.
-Edited by SKanyara
