Kenya leverages golf clubs to boost domestic tourism

Kenya’s tourism marketing body said Sunday that it is leveraging regional golf clubs across the country to promote domestic tourism.

Betty Radier, the chief executive officer of the state-owned Kenya Tourism Board (KTB), said the body has lined up golf tour tournaments in ten golf clubs distributed across key tourist attractions in the country in order to popularize the six-month-long domestic tourism campaign launched in July.

“We will be hosting golf tour tournaments in key tourism regions of the rift valley, central, Nairobi, coast, western and eastern regions as we seek to spread this campaign far and wider,” Radier said in a statement released in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital.

She observed that through the Magical Kenya Golf Tour, partners and operators will have an opportunity to interact and sell travel packages with golf players and the wider public through the mall and corporate visit activities.

Radier noted that domestic tourism cushioned the tourism sector during the COVID-19 pandemic period when international travelers were at an all-time low.

“More than before, the domestic market has proved its resilience during hard times as seen during the COVID-19 period and this is the reason we are exploring opportunities to tap into its potential,” Radier added.

Gladys Kosgei, the head of Marketing at the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), said that national parks are set to benefit from increased visitation as a result of the domestic tourism campaign that targets to open up all the national parks across the country.

Kosgei said that the campaign also aims at encouraging Kenyans to visit all parks including the marine parks in coastal Kenya.

“We are all into promoting domestic tourism and since the COVID-19 pandemic, our strategy has been to harness the potential of domestic tourism to support the sector during hard times and to sustainably conserve and protect Kenya’s wildlife heritage,” Kosgei noted.