Coast counties, Uganda in tourism pact to tap sector opportunities

Coastal counties have partnered with Uganda to tap into the available opportunities in the tourism sector in Kenya and Uganda.

The Kenya Coast Tourists Association leadership officially announced a partnership with the Uganda Consulate in Mombasa on Wednesday.

Next month, Mombasa will host over 500 tourism stakeholders from Uganda and Kenya at the PrideInn Paradise Beach Resort during the four-day Uganda-Kenya Coast Tourism Conference and Exhibition.

The conference has been scheduled for November 16-19, where the participants will tour Mombasa and other coastal counties.

From November 20 to 27, Kenyan tourism stakeholders will tour Uganda for an exchange programme.

KCTA chairman Victor Shitaka said Uganda is one of the biggest tourist source markets for Kenya.

For the last three years, Uganda has been leading in terms of regional tourists for Kenya.

“We are from a regional market where we have a lot of business that we can do together. We are expecting 100 Ugandan hoteliers and tour operators to come to Kenya to showcase their experiences from November 17,” he said.

The conference aims to find a way forward for the tourism sector in Kenya and Uganda post-Covid-19 pandemic.

The Uganda tourism stakeholders will tour Mombasa, Kilifi and Kwale.

Shitaka said they are working on a Memorandum of Understanding where Kenya Coast hoteliers can go and train in Ugandan culture and cuisine.

He said there is a potential to grow because Uganda offers unique facilities that are not in Kenya and they are trying to get to East Africa.

“Some of the biggest tourism countries are big because of internal movement, therefore we have the potential to do it. During Covid-19, African nations came together because we wanted to sell our destinations,” he said.

Shitaka said as tourism key players, they are expecting the new Tourism CS to come up with new ideas, listen and work with different tourism associations that have been formed.

“As KCTA we will give the support to improve tourism. We also expect her to give us all the support in the initiatives we are putting on in tourism,” he said.

He said the Kenya Coast is the hub of tourism therefore they would like to ask her to engage different associations and use them, the people who have passion and experience to promote tourism in Kenya.

The chairman said Uganda flights come directly to Mombasa three times a week as Kenya Airways from Nairobi fly every day to Uganda.

Therefore, the government should make Mombasa as accessible as possible because tourism is about accessibility.

The Ugandan Consul General Ambassador Paul Mukumbya said Uganda is one of the biggest sources of the market for Kenya and Kenya is also one of the source markets for tourists in Uganda.

“We want to focus on domestic tourism because the East Africa tourism market is considered as the domestic market therefore we need to encourage and grow the tourism arrivals within the region,” he said.

“Uganda and Kenya Coast, we have first focused on the two countries because when we grow these two regions, it will be easier for us to cooperate at a wider East Africa community level.” 

He said there is a need to bring in the key players in the tourism sector to know the products available in the two countries and market them effectively.

Upon arrival on November 16, the Ugandan team will tour Mombasa, hold the conference on 17, and proceed to Kilifi on 18 and Kwale on 19 so that they can be exposed to the tourism products.

Mukumbya said tourists are yearning to see beyond the Kenya Coast but as tourism players, they are not yet there and this is why they came up with the concept so that the two destinations can come up with joint packages that they can market jointly.

“It is not competition, it is building networks, and it is complementarity and a win-win situation. You do not need a passport to go to Uganda, you only need the national identification card or you can use a bus because flights to Uganda are expensive,” he said.

“Sometimes it is always cheaper to travel to Dubai than to travel in our region therefore let us try and bring down the cost of travel.” 

He urged the media to market the conference so that they can get the desired quality and people who will add value to the tourism arrival between the two destinations.

PrideInn Hotel managing director Hasnain Noorani said one of the biggest challenges the tourism sector is facing in East Africa is the lack of encouragement of tourism within East African countries.

He said there is a lot more potential and opportunities that can be installed and it all starts with a discussion on how exactly tourism can grow.

“As tourism players, we purchase everything under the roof that is available. When tourism grows hotels become busy which means that the demand created is heavy and when this happens, it increases employment because the hotels are human-oriented,” he said.

Noorani said they are discussing how to increase the number of tourists visiting Uganda from Kenya and from Kenya to Uganda therefore there is a need to review the cost of flights from Kenya to Uganda.

“If you compare Europe where we do a lot of benchmarking, they have a lot of internal flights that are affordable, can we be able to provide such kind of solutions, is there a way that we can have more meetings, conferences and networks within Kenya to be able to talk about the tourism experiences just by developing and focusing on the tourism within the regional borders,” he said.

Noorani said the two countries will benefit because they are not dependent on the single source market and this is where they need to drive themselves.

Edited by Kiilu Damaris