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Kenya Waits on Chinese(AllAfrica Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Kenya is putting in more efforts towards tourism marketing especially targeting countries and regions not known traditionally as source markets. The government recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with People's Republic of China on promotion, security and transport in the tourism sector. The deal was inked in Nairobi between Tourism Cabinet Secretary Phyllis Kandie and the Deputy Chairman of the China Tourism Administration Wang Sifa. The deal will also seek to draw Chinese investors into Kenya's tourism sector to establish more hotels as the country is currently facing a shortage of 30,000 beds to attain full capacity. Speaking when she returned to the country after a week - long tour of China where she led a delegation to market Kenya for Tourism and investment Kandie says China is a huge market that Kenya is keen to trade with. "We want China to buy more value added Kenyan products in order to correct the current trade imbalance in favour of China," she said. Kandie said the push is however meant to add Kenya's tourist arrivals and not substitute visits from the traditional source markets of the West. The government has also released the Sh200 million for tourism recovery that will be used on a short, medium and long term strategy. Tourism Recovery Taskforce Chairperson Lucy Karume said among the short term strategies include implementation of the tax measures to enable corporate and business entities to take their staff on holiday and get tax rebates, as well as engaging foreign missions that have issued travel advisories to cancel the bans. Copyright East African Business Week. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). |