The body charged with marketing Kenya’s tourism the Kenya Tourist Board – KTB’s new chairman Mr. Michael Joseph has detailed a new programme to promote the industry. One of his main agendas is to ensure that Kenya becomes the destination of choice for conference tourism. He stated during a conference that was held to honor him and celebrate his election as the new chair that he is keen in ensuring that Kenya becomes one to the leading conference tourism destinations. He was appointed in November 2010 by the Minister of tourism Mr. Najib Balala but took over office in December 1st although as is the tradition in the tourism industry he held a handover ceremony early this year.
Tour operators and other stakeholders in the tourism industry are expectant given that his reign at Safaricom was such an illustrious period with record earnings for the leading mobile phone firm.
One of the stakeholders Ms. Millicent Odhiambo who is the Executive office of Mombasa and Coast Tourist Association said that they are looking forward expectantly to working with him closely as they believe that Mr. Michael Joseph is bound to bring the same driving force he had during the time he worked at Safaricom.
The Kenya Tourist Board as way of creating a niche in the tourism of Kenya has tried hard to look beyond the traditional wildlife as well as sun and sand as Kenya’s selling points. The East Africa region has seen a tremendous increase in the number of conference tourism with Uganda hosting the 2007 CHOGM conference, the African Union Summit among the major international conferences. Kenya in 2009 has hosted the African Growth and Opportunity Act as one of the major conferences. Conference tourism falls under the Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions segment of the tourism industry.
However most of the conferences are held in Nairobi with specific hotels taking a large share of the conferences such as the KICC, in addition to Intercontinental Hotel and Safari Park hotel. This has caused other stakeholders like Bonfire Adventures s tour operator in Nairobi to cry foul. Mr. Simon Kabu the director said that Mr. Joseph Michael needs to engage more private sector stakeholders with emphasis on hotels development by facilitating and creating incentives.
It was published in November last year that there were to be about eight additional hotels were to be setup in Nairobi due to the increased need for accommodation as there’s an increased number of tourists. The proprietors of these hotels are both local and international at various stages of development from planning and building.
Mr. Joseph Michael took over from Mr. Jake Greeves-Cook who held the position for two years as Kenya’s Tourism Board chairman.
“I’m honoured to serve in this position and will work to make Kenya a truly magical destination that it is,” said Mr Joseph at the reception hosted at a Nairobi hotel.
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