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Kenya Aims For 30,000 Indian Tourists By 2005
Neeti Chopra - Nairobi
Confident about Kenya's potential to woo increased Indian
travellers, the country is now aggressively working towards scratching the surface
of the Indian outbound market. Kenya is aiming to receive 30,000 Indian tourists
by December 2005. According to the Kenya Tourist Board, the target is realistic
as it can be attributed to visible peace, special packages, convenience of visa
on arrival and initiatives being taken by the board to market its product.
"Being a medium-haul destination, tourist arrivals to Kenya from India
have increased in the last couple of years. India's contribution to Kenya's
tourist arrivals in 2004 touched 23,000 as compared to a paltry 11,000 in 2003
and 9,000 in 2002. The already well-established network of national parks and
private nature reserves are very much 'on trend' with the demands of the increasingly
environmentally sensitive visitors from India. We are not looking at just increasing
the number of arrivals. We want to expose the diversity of our product and increase
the length of stay of tourists coming to Kenya," said Fred Okeyo, regional
manager, Kenya Tourist Board.
The board has also increased its budget for India by almost 100 per cent as
compared to last year and has allocated 10 million Kenyan Shilling approximately
for this year. "This amount excludes the cost of advertising with media
that is currently not our focus. But with budgets improving, we are would consider
the advertising aspect as well," Okeyo affirmed.
The board plans to open an office in India by next year, but, is currently working
on logistics. For now, it is seeking representation in the Indian market.
Explaining why Kenya is keen to cash in on the Indian outbound at this point
of time, Okeyo said, "Tourism relationships between India and Kenya have
shaped up very well in the recent past. With the emergence of India and China
as active players on the tourism platform, these countries are going to become
the biggest source markets for tourism in the world in the future. Moreover,
traditional markets like Europe and the US are maturing. Because we used to
get tourists from Europe and America, we used to make investments in these markets.
The tourism board in line with the government policy is now diversifying into
new and emerging markets. The government is supporting the efforts by providing
funding now to invest in these marginal markets."
The various strategies lined up for this year include organising focused FAM
trips for both media and trade, enhancing PR activities, workshops and seminars
and organising its second roadshow in India in October. The Kenya Tourist Board
is also working out a promotional programme in partnership with American Express
and Kenya Airways that will be rolled out from July this year. The programme
that will be running for three months will be floated in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata,
Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Pune and Ahmedabad.
Kenya's product sensitivity towards the Indian traveller includes wildlife safari,
Kenyan culture, and beaches and sports particularly golf. With India's economy
booming, Kenya is currently targeting incentives groups, Bollywood, honeymooners
and middle and upper income groups coming for safaris.
Although flight frequencies to Kenya have increased, the demand for travel to
Kenya is much higher. Therefore, the board is in talks with Kenya Airlines to
increase their capacities and frequencies to India. "We will be moving
fast to engage Air-India and Emirates as well to make the destination more accessible,"
Okeyo pointed out.
Last but not the least, in order to make travel easier to Kenya, the government
of Kenya through the High Commission in India is in talks with the government
of India to remove the stumbling block, that is, the yellow fever inoculation
certificate that is required for travelling to this destination.
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