Experts forecast growth in domestic tourists

By Philip Mwakio

Tourism players at the Coast are projecting a 50 per cent hotel occupancy by domestic tourists in five years time.

Mombasa and Coast Tourist Association Chairman Kuldip Sondhi said Kenya needs to borrow a leaf from other competing countries and promote its destination to the locals.

"Due to global downturn and the myriad of problems we are facing, the tourist high season this first-quarter of the year has ended early," said Sondhi.

He reckons that a few weeks into April, foreign charter flights that bring in tourists had stopped flights.

"Hotels are now depending on locals to fill up places," said Sondhi, who is also a director with the Reef Group of Hotels.

He said the growth area for the operators will be local tourists, which he expects to be the key market in five years time.

He lamented at the poor state of support infrastructure like rail and roads saying they were an impediment to the growth of domestic tourism.

"If the rail network is quickly upgraded, there will be a revolution in domestic tourism as many Kenyans will use trains to travel up and down the Coast for holiday," he said.

The hotelier made the remarks after leading his organisation in donating six tonnes of food to the Kenya Red Cross Society Mombasa branch to be distributed to Kenyans facing starvation.

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