Tourists flock Mombasa on World Tourism Day

Some of the tourists who were on board the Blue Panorama flight take pictures of traditional dancers at the Sarova Whitesands Beach Resort

MOMBASA, KENYA: Coast tourism received a boost on Thursday after more than 250 tourists jetted in Mombasa as Kenya joined the rest of the world in marking World Tourism Day.

The day is globally celebrated on September 27.

The tourists arrived at the Moi International Airport aboard two separate international airlines with the first batch of 70 arriving aboard Turkish Airline flight from Istanbul while Italian charter flight, Blue Panorama flew in another 180 tourists from Italy's Malpensa International Airport.

''This is exciting news for the Kenyan Coast as we join the rest of the world in observing Tourism Day,'' Kenya Association of Hotelkeepers and Caterers (Kahc) Coast branch Executive offficer, Sam Ikwaye said.

The theme of this year’s global celebrations is 'Tourism and the Digital Transformation'.

The City of Budapest, Hungary is the official host for the world celebrations this year.

Analysts stated that globally, Digital advances have had a profound and transformative impact on people’s lives.

Technology has influenced the way we learn, changed how we work, and altered the way humanity’s social fabric is connected.

But Ikwaye pointed out that Kenya was yet to fully tap into digital evolution in her hospitality sector.

'' The truth is that digitisation in tourism transformation has not been harnessed adequately in the country. There is quite alot that can be done from service delivery to destination management but many operators as well as government programmes are still manual,'' Ikwaye said.