KTB to involve regional golf clubs to promote domestic tourism

Kenya Tourism Board (KTB) is leveraging regional golf clubs across the country to promote domestic tourism.

KTB Chief executive officer Betty Radier said that domestic tourism cushioned the tourism sector during the Covid-19 pandemic period when international travelers were at all-time low.

“More than before, the domestic market has proved its resilience during hard times as seen during the Covid-19 period and this is the reason we are exploring opportunities to tap into its potential,” said Radier.

The CEO was speaking in Nakuru Golf club during a magical Kenya golf tour tournament to boost a domestic promotion campaign dubbed ‘You deserve a holiday’ launched a month ago.

KTB has lined up golf tour tournaments in ten golf clubs distributed across key tourism attractions in the country to popularize the six-month long campaign.

“Besides corporate and mall activations to promote this campaign, we will be hosting golf tour tournaments in key tourism regions of Rift valley, Central, Nairobi, Coast, Western and Eastern regions as we seek to spread this campaign far and wider”, said Radier.

Through the Magical Kenya Golf Tour, partners and operators will have an opportunity to interact and sell travel packages with golf players and wider publics through mall and corporate visit activations.

Nakuru County Tourism Association chairperson David Mwangi hailed KTB partnership with the private sector to promote domestic tourism by offering travel options to Kenyans.

He said Nakuru County is quickly recording growth in domestic tourism and especially conferencing after its elevation to a city status besides its centrality and ease of access by several other counties.“After the elevation of Nakuru to a city status, we have seen an increase in business tourism and specific to meetings Incentives Conference and Exhibition (MICE), tourism attractions in the county also benefit from this’ ‘said Kamau.

Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) head of marketing Gladys Kosgei said National parks are set to benefit with increased visitation as a result of the campaign that targets to open up all the national parks across the country.

“We are all into promoting domestic tourism and since the Covid-19 pandemic; our strategy has been to harness the potential of domestic tourism to support the sector during hard times and to sustainably conserve and protect Kenya’s wildlife heritage,” said Kosgei.

She disclosed the visitation into the parks from the domestic market has surpassed the best performing year 2019 by 48 percent with a noticeable growth in adventure segment

According to the Tourism Research Institute (TRI), domestic tourism has stepped in to cushion the sector during the peak of covid-19 pandemic.

The domestic travelers recorded improved performance with bed occupancy for 2021/22 financial year estimated at 4.0 million.

This is an increase of 56.9 per cent compared to 2.6 million recorded the same period in the 2020/21 financial year.