Firms shun holiday offer

No firm has taken up the paid-up holiday given out by the government as an incentive to help revive tourism.

Tourism and Commerce principal secretary Ibrahim Mohamed, Wednesday said although many companies have expressed interest in the proposal, none has taken up the offer due to lack of clear guidelines on its implementation. 

In May, President Uhuru Kenyatta issued a directive allowing companies to pay for their employees to take up a week’s holiday as part of their annual leave and deduct such expenditure from taxes.

This was part of efforts to revive tourism reeling after cancellations due insecurity and travel advisories.  

The PS said a committee would now be set up to develop guidelines on the implementation of the stimulus.

“We have received enquiries. We need to come up with guidelines on the implementation,” Mr Mohammed said.

The committee will be housed at the department of exemptions within the National Treasury. The incentive was planned to start on June 12 after budget speech with projections that this would add at least 300,000 visitors to the hotels every year.

Mr Mohamed was speaking at a tourism leadership forum at Utalii Hotel, in Nairobi, where national and county governments met to chart a future for the ailing industry.  

Mr Mohamed said the ministry had reached an agreement with the county governments to harness the marketing of the country’s offerings at all international fairs.

“We will have representation of the county governments in all our marketing initiatives so that we can bring out the diversity of the country’s profile,” the PS said.

The Treasury, he said, had committed to release the Sh200 million recovery fund in the next few weeks to finance marketing in order to counter the negative effects of terrorism in the country.

Mr Mohamed said about Sh900 million would be spent in marketing Kenya as a good tourist destination during this financial year.

Rebuild confidence

“We have a commitment from the Treasury that this money will be released within weeks so that we can start the fight to rebuild tourists’ confidence,” Mr Mohamed said.

The Kenya Tourist Federation chairperson Lucy Karume called for the fast-tracking of the implementation of the Tourism law and asked the Treasury to review its decision to subject the industry to VAT.  

Kenya has been hit be terrorists attacks, especially at the coast, which is a tourism stronghold scaring away international visitors.