Kenya’s Tourism and wildlife Cabinet Secretary Najib Balala will lead a delegation of 45 travel trade exhibitors from the country to the International Tourism Bourse (ITB) travel show which is being held in Berlin, Germany from the 4th to the 8th of March.
The event which is held annually is touted to be one of the largest tourism trade fairs in the World presenting the perfect opportunity for the country to showcase its diversity in tourism products offerings.
The Kenyan delegation which includes Marketing Agency Kenya Tourism Board (KTB) will have an opportunity to interact with 10,000 exhibitors from over 180 countries, including all the top decision-makers, experts, buyers and young professionals from the tourism industry across the world.
The expo attracts tourism players such as hoteliers, travel tour and companies and marketing agencies from across the globe.
Commenting on Kenya’s participation, CS Najib Balala said that global tourism events and expos provide a good opportunity to interact with world tourism players and assert the significance of Kenya in the tourism space. He added Kenya would use the opportunity to assure international source markets including Germany that the country is safe for holiday.
“Kenya recently participated in the Outbound Travel Mart in Mumbai India, which is an important outbound market for Kenya. ITB is also a perfect platform to not only meet the best minds in the industry but to also showcase the diverse tourism products we have to offer our visitors as a destination,’’ Balala told reporters on Wednesday in Nairobi.
“Our success in tourism is attributable to product diversification, value for money and enhanced infrastructure in the country. Not only that, the government is also making efforts to improve the business environment and encourage foreign investors to set up their businesses in the country,’’ he added.
The German market is Kenya’s 5th most important international tourism source market with a market share of 3.87% as at December 2018 and is the second largest source market in Europe after UK contributing to the region’s market share by 13% as at the same period.
Tourist arrivals grew from 49,247 in 2017, to 78,388 in 2018 and closed with a slight drop to 73,150 in 2019.
Germany remains in the top travelling destinations globally with 72 % of travels made by Germans in 2019 being abroad, spending almost 74B Euro on travelling and holidays.
KTB CEO Dr Betty Radier said that ITB Berlin provided a great opportunity to showcase Kenya’s tourism products and services to hosted buyers and visitors from across the world, she added that the marketing agency would market the destination at the Berlin fair to attract more tourists from Germany and other international markets.
The platform will be used to promote Kenya’s tourism trends such as that of Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions (MICE) which is now a key part of the tourism as well as sports tourism which is set to get a significant boost this year with Kenya hosting the Magical Kenya Open golf championship, World Athletics U20 Championships and the World Safari Rally making a comeback in the country.
JK/abj/APA