Ministry will increase tourism marketing to China

Kenya will spend more money to market its tourism destinations to the Chinese market, whose nationals visiting Kenya for holidays are increasing, a senior government official announced on Monday.

    “We are going to increase our marketing budget towards the new emerging tourism markets specifically the Chinese market,” said Tourism Minister Najib Balala.Chinese tourists to Kenya have increased from 11,655 in 2005 to 20,339 in 2009 and this number jumped to 28,480 last year according to the figures released today by the minister.

    “We expect this number to continue growing,” he said. Kenya and China have been deepening their economic and cultural relations in the recent past, and this is expected to continue pulling in more Chinese tourists to the country.

Along Thika Road where three Chinese companies are involved in the reconstruction of the 50 kilometre superhighway, Chinese nationals have started families with Kenyans, helping to drive interest between the citizens of the two nations.

The Confucius Institute at the University of Nairobi is the largest in Africa and plans to introduce Masters Degree courses an upgrade of the bachelors degree and certificate courses it currently offers.Most recently, officials of the Kenya Tourism Board and the tour operators from Kenya visited China for marketing purposes.

Chinese tourists are expected to spend 55 billion U.S. dollars this year, said the Chinese Outbound Tourism Research Institute, adding that 57 million Chinese tourists are expected to travel abroad this year.Kenya tour operators said the growth of Chinese tourism market is good news for Kenya because it will balance out fluctuations from Kenya traditional tourist markets of Europe .

“The Chinese market is growing. It is a viable market that Kenya should focus on,” said Fred Kaigua, chief executive of Kenya Association of Tour Operators (Kato).Kenya Tourism Board has already launched an official KTB Chinese website, signifying its grand strategy in tapping the Chinese tourists.

Source = coastweek