We must now get down to the serious business of reviving Kenya’s tourism

What you need to know:

  • We must try every trick in the book. I think the recommendations by the Tourism Recovery Task Force are a good starting point.
  • What is needed now is a new sense of urgency in implementing what has been recommended by the experts.
  • Methinks President Kenyatta should appoint a high-profile champion with the clout and power to cut across all ministries to lead the process of taking tourism back to where it was before 2012.

The Tourism Recovery Task Force, which was appointed by President Uhuru Kenyatta last year, yesterday presented to the government a raft of recommendations on how to revive the industry.

Clearly, putting tourism back on its feet is going to require something more radical. It seems to me that our leaders are yet to come to grips with the gravity of the situation.

It has not yet sunk in that our tourism industry is going through its worst crisis ever. What we are witnessing now is not your usual boom-and-bust cycles.

And the industry is taking too long to recover. When you examine the trends closely, it seems as if it is going to take us three years before we can start registering the volumes — both in terms of tourist arrivals and hotel bed occupancy rates — we last saw in 2012.

It is a very scary scenario if you appreciate what a sluggish tourism industry means to this country, both in terms of job creation and stability of the exchange rate.

For instance, it is feared that the current trends may introduce unexpected risks to one of the critical flagship Vision 2030 projects — the multibillion-shilling Greenfield Airport at Embakasi.

The success of this project, which is in itself  critical to our hopes of entrenching ourselves us a hub of tourism and travel in the region, is partly dependent on buoyancy of passenger taxes and landing and parking fees.

Then there is the case of the massive expansion project rolled out two years ago by the national carrier, Kenya Airways, which remains at risk if the slump in tourism persists.

Without urgent action, we must prepare to see a wave of insolvencies sweeping through the hospitality and travel industries and among tour operators.
Initially, the industry responded by declaring redundancies and instituting cost reduction measures.

However, there is a limit to what redundancy can do, especially in the hospitality industry where large fixed assets have to be constantly managed and maintained.

WE MUST TRY EVERY TRICK

We must try every trick in the book. I think the recommendations by the Tourism Recovery Task Force are a good starting point. What is needed now is a new sense of urgency in implementing what has been recommended by the experts.

Methinks President Kenyatta should appoint a high-profile champion with the clout and power to cut across all ministries to lead the process of taking tourism back to where it was before 2012.

It is not that I consider the Ministry of Tourism as not being up to the task. The way the government is organised right now is such that we do not have what is known in tourism as a single destination management organisation.

For instance, control of one of tourism’s key national assets — wildlife — is under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Wildlife. Key sectors such as transport are outside the control of the Ministry of Tourism. The task force has flagged issues for which responsibility cuts across the ministries of Health, Foreign Affairs, Internal Security, and the Treasury.

Only a champion with power and clout to cut through the labyrinth of government institutions and ministries with responsibilities that touch on tourism can get us to start thinking strategically through the current crisis.

What do we need to do to have Kenya removed from the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) list of Ebola high-risk countries? What must be done to get us removed from the WHO list of yellow fever-prone countries?

We have been talking about liberalisation of air transport in Kenya for ages. We must urgently roll out a fully funded Marshall Plan to improve security in our tourism installations.

The big problem right now is that we have not been loud enough about what we are doing to improve security and what we have achieved in terms of preventing terrorist attacks.

What must we do to nurture and support tourists who are attached to Kenya, or to recognise and appreciate major source markets such as Germany, which are usually slow to issue travel advisories against us? Security is usually about perceptions, and the perceived risk may outweigh the reality.

Let us get real about reviving tourism. Until there is a concerted effort from the very top to revive this industry, we should not expect miracles.