KENYA Tourist Board (KTB) recently held its first of a series of UAE promotional seminars and workshops headed by Jennifer Opondo, KTB’s director of marketing, along with a delegation including Kenya Wildlife Services representatives and key Kenyan travel industry companies and individuals.
They conducted a series of seminars, workshops and meetings in Abu Dhabi, Sharjah and Dubai, targeting the UAE’s leading travel industry players to highlight Kenya’s attractiveness as a holiday and meetings and incentives destination.
Kenya’s rich wildlife and safari experiences were the focus of many of the presentations, highlighting the sophistication and safety precautions undertaken by Kenyan authorities and travel companies to provide unforgettable experiences where the whole family can experience nature close up, whether it is by jeep, hot air balloon or, for the more adventurous, on foot or on horseback. Similarly, the vast array of luxury accommodation on offer was also extensively highlighted, with visitors to Kenya able to enjoy five-star accommodation and services whether they be as a city hotel, golfing or beach resort accommodation type, private serviced villas or exclusive luxury tented camps and resorts in the country’s many national parks and reserves.
In addition to wildlife and luxury, the Kenya Tourist Board introduced many of the country’s cultural experiences such as visits to Maasai villages and other tribal cultural centres, and visits to Kenya’s Unesco World Heritage town of Lamu, the birth place of Swahili culture, and where GCC nationals can experience how the Arabic language, culture, religion and even architecture strongly shaped and influenced Kenya’s ongoing cultural development. Furthermore, for the UAE’s golf enthusiasts Kenya was introduced as one of the world’s great ‘undiscovered’ golfing destinations, with 39 golf courses in total, of which 12 are used for major championship events.
Opondo said: “At only a short four-and-a-half-hour flight away from the UAE, Kenya is the perfect long-weekend getaway destination for families, couples and friends looking for unique and magical experiences. For these same reasons and also due to English being the business language of the country and the fact that most nationalities are able to acquire their visit visa on arrival, Kenya is a convenient and exciting place for companies to hold their incentive meetings and staff team-building activities.”
Visitors to Kenya from the Middle East have been steadily climbing year on year, with the total number of visitors from the UAE in 2009 standing at 11,811. Visitor data is currently only available until November 2010, however for the first eleven months of 2010 the number of visitors from the UAE had already surpassed the 2009 total reaching 12,980.
Opondo added: “Air connectivity between the Gulf region and Kenya is strong with direct flights by Kenya Airways, Emirates Airlines, Air Arabia and Qatar Airways. Along with the support of our travel industry partners this has fueled much of the increase in demand for Kenya by travellers from this region. To date, the vast majority of demand from the region has hailed from the UAE and we are very keen to see this welcoming trend continue, hence our implementation of this Kenya seminar and workshop.”