Tourism docket seeks Sh3b more to reclaim lost glory, CS Najib Balala says

Tourism CS Najib Balala rides on a horse before he officiated the opening ceremony of the Giraffe Ark game lodge in Nyeri, April 15, 2016, he appealed to stakeholders in the hospitality industry to make the prices of their products affordable for locals to buy them. PHOTO: MOSE SAMMY/STANDARD

NAIROBI: Tourism stakeholders are seeking Sh3 billion in the 2016/2017 financial year to pay for recovery efforts as the country’s second largest foreign exchange earner strives for rebound.

Tourism Cabinet Secretary Najib Balala said the funds, part of the Sh5.2 billion tourism recovery fund announced by the Treasury in last year’s budget, will be deployed in the 2016/2017 financial year.

“Of the funds in the recovery kitty, Sh3 billion was taken back to the Treasury in consultation with the industry stakeholders because some programmes were not ready,” said Mr Balala.

“We have reviewed our programming and we have confirmed that this money will be disbursed in the next financial year.”

Balala said the tourism industry has registered some gains in the recent past and was hopeful that the recovery would continue into the short to medium term.

COMPETITIVE

“There has been an 18 per cent increase in arrivals in January and February and we anticipate a 20-30 per cent increase in the summer season starting July and hope to see the same percentages over the winter season as well,” he said.

Since 2011, Kenya has witnessed repeated cases of terrorism attacks blamed on the Al Shabaab militia. Aside from the loss of lives, the attacks increased Kenya’s risk profiles with key source markets, the United Kingdom, United States, France and Austria placing crippling travel advisories.

Most of the countries have either downgraded or revised their travel advisors warning their citizens against traveling to Kenya and Germany last week became the latest country to join the list.

Balala added that the government will work on a raft of incentives for the local tourism players including pushing for a waiver for VAT paid by Kenyan tour operators.

“Tour operators in Kenya are paying VAT and their counterparts in other countries do not and this automatically makes the services of tour operators at least 16 per cent more expensive than the same services conducted by their counterparts across the border,” said Balala.

“We will forward to the Treasury the proposal to scrap VAT paid by Kenyan tour operators so that the cost of the services can come down and we can be more competitive,” he said.

Balala said the government will establish a task-force together with the Inspector General owing to the increased cases of harassment of tour operators by security forces.

“There have been issues of harassment at the airport and immigration departments and we are going to work with the police to reduce and eventually stop this,” the CS said.