inform the potential of the County
as a medical tourism destination
in addition to MICE due to
Geographical location in East Africa.
In addition to the fresh water lake,
the county should have been
thinking of tourism activities related
to water sports (and crowning it with
gastronomy experience with real fish
– not the ones reared in fish bonds!!
Thika was modelled as an industrial
Town. In our school days my
generation visited Thika during that
all important first school trip in
life for a tour of the factories. This
generation are now parenting with
considerable disposable income.
What is the County authority doing
to exploit that nostalgic attachment
to stimulate domestic tourism
for instance? I would love to eat
pineapples in the plantations (or in
the factory) with my fa mily the same
way I did decades ago as a school boy.
Nairobi County on the other hand,
should have, as a matter of urgency
modeled its value proposition to
exploit business tourism to rival
Johannesburg for a slice of the
continental MICE market share. In
addition, Nairobi County ought to
have seriously considered city tours
(Tackle traffic jams of course).
It may come as surprise to readers
that Duomo Cathedral (Milan)
generates millions of Euros from
Tourist from the 5,000,000 visitors
who visit the Cathedral every year.
The last time I was in Milan I paid
Euros 12 to go inside the Cathedral.
Do your Maths on the numbers.
lot more if we stretch ourselves just a
little bit more.
Certainly, no County has a monopoly
over others in positioning itself as a
safari destination county for example,
but the foregoing examples and the
aforementioned SWOT analysis
would help in guiding if not dictating
to Counties where they stand a better
chance expending their effort and
energy in.
Interestingly, Kenya on the
other hand, as a destination was
celebrating achieving a paltry
1,600,000 visitors!
This would provide good synergy to
Kenya even at National level.
Having said this, it is fair to mention
that certain counties have got it right or
are about to get it right in formulating
and executing some admirable
destination marketing initiatives.
These are some of the developments
and examples which make me
suspect that we have essentially
devolved ‘Kiosk mentality’ to the
counties and augmented it with ‘Me
too product approach in marketing
(this is a topic for another article)
and celebrate our achievements not
realizing that Counties can achieve a
Ben Asoro is an international Mice
Expert recently elected as the Chairman
of ICCA in Africa and working as
Director - Marketing & Sales at
Calabar International Convention
Centre in Nigeria. You can engage
him on this or related issues via mail
at: [email protected], or Ben@
conventioncentrecalabar.com
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