By XN Iraki
Kenya: Whatever the political sentiments, we need more foreign tourists.
They are likely to spend more and our tourist facilities were built with them in mind. They also improve our brand and market the country.
It is unlikely that a Kenyan will spend a week at Serena Hotel in Nairobi or Sarova Lion Hill inside Lake Nakuru National Park — unless for a seminar.
Therefore, the Government’s measures to save the tourism sector from disaster will help tour operators — it seems their lobbying paid off — but may not bring in more tourists.
Even our biggest attractions, like safaris, are not our cup of tea. Ask your friends how many of them have been to Nairobi National Park. How often do you see a van full of tourists who look like me driving around a national park?
If we have to focus more on domestic tourism, we have change many things; we need to do an “Equity” and change the rules of the game so that we can attract the untravelled the same way we attracted the unbanked. I’m not a pessimist, but going to beaches and visiting national parks is yet to catch up with most of us.
Economists will point out that tourism is highly elastic — it’s a luxury that can easily be done away with, particularly if there are competing priorities.
Life’s preoccupations
The other businesses driven by tourists, like curio shops, are unlikely to be patronised by us. Who has ever bought a Maasai shuka from one of these shops?
There is no doubt that travelling is fun, going by the number of new school buses on Kenyan roads. But after high school, most Kenyans stick to their homes, trying to make ends meet. We normally travel only for funerals or weddings.
Educating children, getting enough to eat are often the great preoccupations of life. Travelling for leisure is rare.
Lots of Kenyans have relatives who live in places like Shamakhokho or Ekalakala, and have never met them, though they would love to. Let’s accept that travelling is expensive, whether by private or public means.
Enough on Kenyans; who are the foreign tourists who visit and spend their money here? How can we attract more of them?
Among the tourists are lots of retired people who have plenty of time and money. Not that they are rich, but their pension and saving habits are good. Retired people in Kenya often chase their pension in several offices instead of travelling.
The lesson is simple; we shall become tourists when we have surplus money. If we need more domestic tourists, we need to improve our pension and savings culture.
The other group of tourists are young men looking for adventure, fun and positive mischief. If you are keen, you’ll notice many such tourists don’t visit our country. But they do so in droves elsewhere. American students flock to Cancun, Mexico, during school breaks. Lots of young Britons travel to Spain, and vice versa.
These students and young men are often working and have some disposal income. How many students work and how many get jobs after school in Kenya? Young people generally have plenty of time, just like the pensioners. They are also curious.
Interestingly, we have plenty of facilities for elderly tourists but not young ones. Maybe the Kenya Tourist Board has data that profiles the types of tourists we get and what attracts them.
Exploited tourists
We have given incentives to key players in the tourism sector, but what of the tourists?
If you visit our national parks, you will realise that foreign tourists pay almost 10 times what we pay, and they know it. Can we further reduce that differential? These tourists probably feel exploited. Does that explain why they spend so little money in Kenya?
The other incentive we need to give is freedom. Most foreign tourists who visit us drive themselves in their home countries. Why can’t they drive themselves to their destinations in Kenya or beyond so that they can enjoy their freedom, particularly with the East African visa?
But back to the basics, are our highways world class? I would like to hear a Japanese or American tourist’s experience of travelling on Kenyan roads. How do they deal with calls of nature when on the road before getting to Delamere’s? How come no county has replicated Delamere’s?
The biggest incentive for foreign tourists is the experience. What do they remember long after visiting Kenya? There is no doubt national parks are a big attraction. But we have not diversified much, and a tourist does not want to visit only national parks, especially with the diversity of animals reducing instead of increasing.
We can package our different cultures for them to experience. Kenya’s different ethnic groups are a tourism jewel. Why not have tourists stay in our homes and see how we get water, firewood and cook? Imagine a tourist reporting how Maasais mix blood with milk … for food?
Throughout history, Kenya has been occupied by Britons, the Germans along the Tanzania boarder, the Arabs and Portuguese along the coast, and Italians to the North. Why have we not packaged that history to attract tourists?
We need to get creative. Don’t tourists go to see graveyards in Egypt — or what are pyramids?
Needless to say, we must make tourists feel secure in Kenya and they will spend more money and drive our economy. The truth is, we have done a good job publicising the negative things about Kenya, keeping off tourists.
Tourists who visit Kenya will confess that what they see in the media and what they experience in reality are two different things!
The writer is a senior lecturer at University of Nairobi’s School of Business. xniraki@gmail.com
