Kenya plans to leverage on the Outbound Travel Mart (OTM) as part of increasing its
market share from the growing outbound travel originating from the Asia Pacific region.
OTM is being held from the 3rd to the 5th of February 2020 at the Bombay Exhibition Center
in Mumbai. The platform will avail Kenya’s travel trade the opportunity to interact with
other destination marketing organisations on marketing Kenya.
It is the leading travel show within the Asia-Pacific region and is highly ranked with over
50 countries, 1000 exhibitors and 15000 trade visitors expected to be in attendance.
The event is touted by tourism players to be the gateway to India’s travel markets.
Kenya is being represented by marketing agency Kenya Tourism Board (KTB) in partnership
with 12 members of the Kenya travel trade with a mission to boost visitor numbers.
India is ranked among Kenya’s top five tourists source markets from the Asian continent
and is considered among the fastest growing outbound tourism travel markets, with
UNWTO forecasting that India will account for 50 million outbound tourists by 2020.
The event will offer Kenya the opportunity to gain market insights, identify market
Opportunities, while also strengthening and building trade relations with India’s major
outbound operators for continued tourism growth in the country.
It will also provide an opportunity to engage and inspire the Indian buyers to expand and
diversify Kenya product offerings to consumers, especially during India’s peak travel period.
Commenting on Kenya’s participation KTB CEO, Dr. Betty Radier, said that the event offered
Kenya a great opportunity to strengthen its ties with the Indian market, while also opening
more opportunities for Kenya within the Indian market at large.
“India is a priority source market for Kenya. The latest data indicates that arrivals from India
in year 2019 closed at 122,600 with these numbers expected to grow in the coming years.
The expo will bring us nearer to achieving more numbers from 2020 going forward,“ she
said in Nairobi on Tuesday.
Our previous participation in this event has been of tremendous benefit to us with several
milestones being achieved in the last few years such as hosting the Indirica Festival Kenya
which is an initiative aimed at creating synergies and opening new opportunities to connect
India with Africa,” said Dr. Radier.
Dr. Radier noted that “the return of the Air India in Kenya last year is a good indicator for
the two countries and will also increase existing connectivity to Kenya and thus further
enhance accessibility of the destination by Indian travellers.
India has 75 million passport holders, which presents a great opportunity for Kenya to tap
into, especially in peak travel seasons of October to December, when 25 percent of
outbound travel happens and from April to June that has 50 percent of outbound travel.
JK/GIK/APA