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NEWS & CURRENT AFFAIRS

The Nairobian

Kenya bets on Slovakia to boost tourism fortunes

Business

By Fredrick Obura | May 26, 2012

By Fredrick Obura

Slovakia is to start direct flights to Kenya by early July.

This will promote tourism and trade between the two countries.

Minister for Tourism Danson Mwazo, who visited the country recently, said the absence of flights between Kenya and Slovakia had hampered trade between the two countries.

“There has been no direct contact with the business community of Slovakia and you find Kenyan flowers and tea sourced from Netherlands being sold there,”said Mwazo.

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“Also, Kenyan handicrafts bought from Germany are sold in the Eastern European country.” The minister said the maiden flight to Kenya is set to come on June 30, or July 4, and would bring 200 tourists from Slovakia.

Mwazo observed his ministry was eying more tourist destinations in Eastern Europe that have not been heavily impacted by the ongoing Eurozone crisis.

Europe is Kenya’s largest tourist source market. The Government is looking at diversifying its markets to mitigate effects of the financial crisis in Europe, which has affected spending power of its citizens.

Slovakia’s ambassador to Kenya Michal Mlynár revealed his country had previously preferred Egypt as the ideal tour destination within Africa.

However, he said, with growing information and increasing incomes, they are now looking to other areas within the continent for leisure travel.

Aside from tourism, Mlynár said his country will in the course of the year disburse €€Euros 3.3 million (Sh 350 million) as aid for various projects in Kenya. Kenya’s bid to open up new market in Slovakia comes on the backdrop of marginal fall in tourist earnings in the last quarter.

Results from the first quarter of this year indicate a decline in performance with the number of tourist arrivals going down by 0.5 per cent compared to last year.

According to the statistics the overall tourist arrivals declined by 0.5 per cent in the first three months of the year.

This was characterised by a dip of 3.2 per cent and 2.2 per cent for the months of January and March respectively, and a rise of 4.3 per cent in the month of February.

Tourist arrivals at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport grew by 8.8 per cent to stand at 239,523 compared to the 220,097 visitors who arrived into the country between January and March last year.