Its the same travel advisory from two years ago, in the meantime, KTB has invited 3000! agents from USA to sell them Kenyan products, you know what happens when we sell someone the Kenyan package (they go bananas!) then I heard this year Kenya is going to be setting up one of the biggest exibition shows in the US to showcase Kenyan products ...
The United States has overtaken the United Kingdom as the top source of international tourists in Kenya in the first 10 months of the year as arrivals increased by 16.1 per cent.
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The Kenya Tourism Board (KTB) says 82,363 visitors from the US toured the country between January and October, compared to 80,821 from Britain.
US arrivals increased 16.4 per cent while those from UK dropped 4.2 per cent as the tourism sector that has performed poorly over the past six years rebounds.
The number of international visitors rose to 729,682 in the year to October, up from 628,345 in a similar period in 2015 when arrivals slumped by 20 per cent.
The growth is welcome news to hoteliers who had been forced to cut jobs, slash pay or close shop following the crippling effects of several travel alerts issued in 2014 after a spate of terror attacks on holiday getaway towns.
Tourism was once Kenya’s highest foreign exchange earner, but has been declining over the years.
Official data shows the sector earned the country Sh84.6 billion last year, down from Sh87.1 billion in 2014 and Sh97.9 billion in 2011.
“To increase further the tourist arrivals from the US, the government will in February next year host 3,000 American travel agents for them to familiarise with our tourism products,” said Tourism Cabinet secretary Najib Balala.
The minister said industry would perform better this year bolstered by the surge in arrivals from the US, India, Uganda and China, among others.
Past terror attacks had caused a big drop in foreign visitor arrivals after Western nations issued travel advisories. This partly saw the weakening of the shilling to the US dollar last year as the drop in arrivals threatened to cut the inflows of hard currency.
The US and Britain have since lifted their travel advisories on coastal holiday-making towns of Mombasa and Malindi, raising hopes of a faster sector revival. Besides hotels, tourism supports handicraft makers, taxi business, fishermen and farmers.
India was the third largest market for Kenya in the period under review with arrivals of 54,983 up from 41,257 the previous year while Uganda was fourth with arrivals of 45,116 up from 24,420.
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China took fifth position with arrivals of 41,459 up from 25,299 while Germany was sixth with 36,066 up from 30,806 while South Africa was seventh with 28,720 up from 25,819.
Italy was eighth with 27,933 arrivals while France and United Arab Emirates had 17,303 and 17,180 arrivals respectively
By MATHIAS RINGA
Posted Tuesday, December 20 2016 at 17:09
America overtakes UK as Kenya’s top tourist source market