Eerie silence hovers over Nakuru`s top tourist lodges as the corona-virus pandemic bites the hotel industry that employs one in 10 people in the County. As the government eases COVID-19 restrictions, tourists are slowly streaming back to the facilities admiring the breathtaking sites that envelope the hotels.
Even as the government allows cross border travel amid conformity to COVID-19 restrictions, restaurateurs are calling for concerted efforts toward diversification of local tourism products to attract more domestic tourists and expand the country`s appeal on the global stage. The hotel owners also want enactment of stringent laws that will tame negative politics, they say, is injurious to the tourism sector that is struggling to smart out of COVID-19 economic aftershocks.
Rift Valley Lakes Tourism Association Coordinator and coordinator to Lake Nakuru Lodge Joseph Muya says the central and county governments through the regional economic blocs should consider a joint marketing campaign with owners of private lodges in the country`s tourism circuits to boost revenue. The country has six regional economic blocs namely: Lake Region Economic Bloc (LREB), the North Rift Economic Bloc (NOREB), the Frontier Counties Economic Council (FCDC), Jumuia Ya Kaunti Za Pwani, South Eastern Kenya Economic Bloc and the Mount Kenya and the Aberdares Region Economic Bloc.
Joseph Muya says the collaboration is significant in mapping, protection and marketing of additional attraction sites in the counties to earn the country more local and foreign revenue. Members of the Tourism association are drawn from Tourism and hospitality facilities around Lakes Nakuru, Naivasha, Elementaita, Baringo and Bogoria. He hopes this will complement the government`s Ksh.5.6 Billion recovery plan for the tourism sector that supports thousands of livelihoods in the areas.
Muya who is also the Marketing Manager of Lake Nakuru Lodge says over 4,000 employees working in the Tourism and Hospitality Sector in Nakuru have been rendered jobless following closure of hotels and restricted travel regulations by key countries where visitors to tourist attraction sites originated from.
The Coordinator says Lake Nakuru Lodge alone has cut down its employee numbers from 250 to 22 and observes that similar facilities in Central and Western tourism circuit are also closed, directly affecting more than 50,000 people in the tourism and hospitality industry. He exudes concern at the rising political temperature saying continued squabbling in the political class against the 2022 succession debate backdrop is scaring away international tourists looking to tour the country in the next three years.
Muya observes that this is inimical to the anticipated growth of the sector supported by the recovery plan and peace. He adds that politically instigated tension in the country is likely to deepen the present crisis in the sector and calls on authorities to hold reckless politicians accountable. He says negative politics ahead of general elections in the country have, in the past, led to a devastating slump of the economy and this has hurt local investments in the sector and livelihoods.
Lake Nakuru National Park Senior Warden Edward Karanja says visitation at the national park is steadily rising. He says during the pandemic the closure of the country`s borders and suspension of mass tourism , the facility has been recording a rising number of local tourists ,a development he says must be encouraged as an effort to make the sector sustainable.
However, Karanja notes that with the phenomenal rise of the Coverage of Lake Nakuru water from 44 square kilometers in the year 2012 to 65 square kilometers today, this has hampered access to critical tourist attractions in the wildlife facility dipping earnings. He says the water has submerged roads to key attraction sites but with the help of the stimulus program, the management of the park has been able to recruit 100 scouts who are helping in restorative programs aimed at enhancing access to the attraction sites.
Karanja says the water has been receding in recent weeks raising prospects of recovering the sites and boost the dwindling local and global interest in the wildlife facility in the next peak season that begins next month. Foreign tourists patronizing the park come from Spain, India, South East Asia and the United States of America. Those interviewed expressed excitement at attraction sites within the wildlife facility and the Central Rift tourism circuit.
A Spanish Couple Israel and Helena Santez are on their two week
s Honeymoon at the Lake Nakuru Lodge. They hope to return next year after the General elections and explore the country more.Tourism is Kenya’s second largest source of foreign exchange revenue after agriculture.
The country is the third largest travel and tourism economy in Africa after South Africa and Nigeria. In 2019, 2.04 million international visitors arrived in Kenya, with 1.4 million landing at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi and 128,222 at Moi International Airport in Mombasa. In addition, 29,462 visitors arrived at other airports in the country, while 467,179 arrived by land. In 2018 total arrivals were 2.02 million.
While international visitors like the Santez hope to return next year, Muya and other lodge owners in the Country hope the oncoming election season will not disrupt such dreams which he says if allowed to become a reality, it is a boon to the country`s economy as thousands of livelihoods that are dependent on tourism in local tourism circuits are transformed.