Tourism plays a very important
role in the economic growth of any nation globally. It is through tourism that
countries in Europe, America and Asia and Africa have counted their largest
income.
In Kenya, tourism has been the
front line in stabilizing our economy, and is one of the most important sectors
providing employment to thousands of people directly and many more indirectly.
It is the second highest foreign exchange earner after agriculture and more the
reason why it is important to see how we can diversify the products offered in
this sector through other ways especially through cruise tourism.
Cruise tourism is the use of ships for pleasure
cruising and not merely for transportation and it is unique in the manner in
which it provides a combination of transportation, accommodation,
entertainment, retail and destination services.
Investing in the Kenya tourism is
becoming very attractive. With aggressive marketing and diversification of
source markets by the government, the industry is recording an all time high.
There is also need to identify other tourist attractions besides the existing
National Parks, Game reserves and the Beach that have not yet been exploited.
In order to extend the length of stay of “safari” tourists in Kenya, emphasis
will be put into the development of inland “resorts” situated close to the
national parks and game reserves. It is noted that the main constraint to the
development of such resorts has been lack of sufficient investment capital.
Participation in such investment ventures will, therefore, be very much
encouraged by the Government of Kenya in order to exploit the tourism potential
in those areas. Investment in tourism In Kenya include in lodges, transport and
ground handling, travel agencies, and entertainment including restaurants,
discos and theme parks.
It is expected that Kenya will
benefit a lot through “cross cruising” that sees the many cruise ships that are
expected to call at the port of Durban to also come to the port of Mombasa
though our biggest threat at the moment is that we do not have facilities for
such huge visits and this will cause us quite a great loss of opportunities as
for some passengers as well as ship operators might be on their first visit and
so looking out for new future destinations. New vessels expected at the South
African ports that are on their first visit, and, are on the look out for new
destinations include the giant QUEEN MARY TWO that is expected to call at Cape
Town and Durban, P&O’s Aurora:
Apart from the infrastructural
challenges, a Value Added Tax introduced in mid 2010 by the Kenyan government
on marine and port services will hurt the cruise industry In the East region.
International Cruise ship operators locked horns with KPA recently over the VAT
threatening to withdraw their cruise lines from Mombasa, which would also
affect Dar es salaam and Zanzibar.
The Kenyan government has also
raised its entry visa fees that has in turn caused the cruise ship companies to
look for new ports to call that have better holiday packages, lower entry rates
and attractive scenery. Most potential cruise liners have actually changed
their destinations to rival ports of South Africa and Tanzania which are
proving to attract more attention than Kenya. Tanzania is famous as the home of
Mt Kilimanjaro, Serengeti,
Ngorongoro crater, Its displays a lot of the exotic Swahili cultural and
architectural influences dating back to the sultanates, its organized city
sightseeing tour and its national parks which are a good distance from their
capital city and can be reached by full-day or overnight excursions which is a
great plus as compared to Kenya. It also boasts beautiful beaches, marine
sports, snorkeling and diving.
The number of cruise
passengers has been growing almost twice as fast as International Tourist
arrivals in the last decade, this is according to a study on the cruise
industry by some analysts who stated that “ ..the number of
cruise passengers has increased by 7.7% from 1999 to date”. For this reason,
there are plans to construct other berths at “ Dongo Kundu” and there is a
master plan for the construction of new port terminals at Lamu, then the
government together with the tourism operators, the ports officials and
stake holders should have no reason as to why they cannot reconstruct or
dedicate one or two berths just for cruise tourism. In this research we will
try and see how best to work towards building a cruise station that will help
support this trade and host the large numbers of tourists that we have been
getting and are still expecting to get through the cross cruising.
Since Kenya has been in the
cruise tourism industry much earlier than the Emirate who discovered the
advantage to this sector much recently, it is sad to note that they have put
quite a lot into creating better facilities and services than many other ports
including ours and this has put them on top of most cruise destinations. Kenya
has equal or even more potential to attract a bigger tourist percentage as it
holds some of the most spoken of tourist attractions than the Emirate, so if we
are to put more emphasis on security and infrastructure then we can be ranked
amongst the top twenty cruise destinations.
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