Kenya has for the longest time ever marketed itself as a safari haven and more often than not we have overplayed our white sandy beaches theme.It is time we repackaged our tourism industry to offer to both the domestic and foreign market more variety and choice as people are becoming more selective in their choice of holiday destinations.
The Kenya Tourism Board is organizing the 2010 tourism fair and on its advert that was in the Sunday paper there were over 80 exhibitors listed from the region.While appreciating the work that has gone to make this event a success there is a lot more that the board needs to do to market the country as a unique destination.
As an event organizer who handles a variety of clients there are a lot of gaps that i have found that if taken care of would go a long way towards promoting the domestic tourism market.
Lack of information:Most times the first place one goes to when looking for information nowadays is the internet but our local hotel industry hasn't realized that.While it is true that you cannot always make your website as comprehensive as possible,there are some vital things that i have found lacking in the local hotel industry.Just type in local hotel names on search engines and more often than not you are going to end up at a travel agent site.Wile this may have been useful awhile back,what happens when people like me who are independent organizers or planners need to contact these said hotels for inquiries,why do we need to go through a travel agent.It is time players in the industry designed websites that will be able to provide first hand knowledge on their services and products.With all the talk on e tourism and e commerce going on why cant the board provide information on the content that could be provided on these sites for both local and international tourists.
Customer experiences:The hotel industry needs to take some lessons from Safaricom.This company that has broken all records in terms of revenue and success,has always insisted the customer is first and this has been the key to their success and most of their innovations -Mpesa being the best example.A month ago i was looking for a place for a Kenyan couple to spend their honeymoon and i settled on a lodge in the Rift Valley that has a really scenic view,when i called them for a reservation and requested if they could provide a bottle of wine for the couple,i was met with the statement that they don't provide anything of the sort but they would give them a glass of wine as per my request.I was flabbergasted to say the least because with this kind of attitude how do we expect to have more Kenyans spending their honeymoons within the country instead of taking off to Seychelles,Egypt,Paris or any other destination,yet we have so much scenery,wildlife and experiences to offer.Great customer experiences will always bring customers back because there is no better way of advertising than by word of mouth,a great experience at your hotel/lodge/camp and that customer will be singing your praises to the high heavens.
Going local:Sometimes some staff at hotels are still saddled with the colonial mentality that the color of your skin determines how fat your wallet is.While this may have been the case some decades back things have changed in the last 10 years,at the moment we have younger C.E.O S than 20 years ago.Young men and women in their late twenties and early thirties who are running their own companies or who are senior managers of multinationals and drive fuel guzzlers and fat checks to boot.It is time we repackaged our destinations for local tourists.It is also necessary for hotels to provide rates for local tourists because more often than not you either have to call(after a gruelling search for the hotel phone numbers) or send and email to a travel agent who will then forward it to the hotel before you get an answer a after a day or two.
Finally in spirit of regional integration d cooperation we need to have the tourism bodies in the member countries of the east African common market get their heads together and come up with a way by which citizens from each of these countries are encouraged to tour this states.The famous Saint Augustine said that “The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.”let these countries encourage their citizens to travel the region to learn,explore and build relationships.
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