Tourism Cs Najib Balala has hailed the efforts in Tourism Recovery strategy that has tremendously increased the numbers to over 20% growth the Cs is expected to release the statics mid January next year.
Speaking in Mtwapa Kilifi County after the official launch of the Online tourism marketing site initiated by the county government the CS says the situation is positive Beach and Safari tourism in Mombasa Diani and Malindi and the African safari parks which are also doing well.
The National Government is set to establish five Tourism councils in the country to boost promotion of the industry beginning January next year,
Balala said they have identified five regional councils which will be connected to the Kenya tourism board for the purposes of promoting tourism.
He said the ministry will also unveil other regional tourism councils in Rift Valley, the Lake Region, the Northern Region and Nairobi
“At the end of January we will launch the tourism councils for the regions in the country, at the Kenyan they will be able to foster relationships between the private partners and the government,’’ he said.
Balala said currently the Ministry is focus on online tourism platform and announced that soon there would be no more costs of raveling to Market the country abroad which is costly.
The CS spoke just days after launching the Kilifi county Online tourism platform that is aimed at reducing cost of marketing abroad.
He hailed the County of Kilifi for being the first out of the 47 counties to introduce Electronic tourism marketing and revealed that Kenya Tourism board would also be unveiling their platform.
“We want to see Kenya Tourism board going to the world tourism market, most people go to the internet before moving to a destination,’’ he said.
Balala said the Ministry has also established a beach strategy and asked investors to take advantage of it as the government will act as an enabler.
He said they are in the process of restructuring KTB to come up with digital marketing strategy that will see active use of the websites and social media to reach to the world instead of traveling.
However he said hotels need to be upgraded as some facilities are old particularly in Malindi so as to attract the modern day tourist.
The Cabinet Secretary said President Kenyatta’s government has invested over Sh. 100 billion in the Coast region alone to develop the infrastructure including the Airports, Roads.