Kenya: COVID-19 Presented an Opportunity to Rethink Tourism, Industry Players Say

By Susan Nyawira

Various stakeholders in the tourism sector have said that Covid-19 presented a major opportunity to rethink the industry and be more innovative despite the numerous challenges it brought.

Speaking at a roundtable discussion during the rebrand of Express Travel Group (ETG) to Hemingways Travel, Tourism CS Najib Balala noted that the Covid-19 pandemic presented an opportunity for industry players to think out of the box since it wasn't things as usual.

"Technology innovation and collaboration enabled the tourism sector to ride the difficult Covid period and this should be the trend going forward," Balala said.

According to Hemingways Travel MD Joseph Kithitu, the pandemic revealed that things can happen outside of your plans and that shows you need a serious travel back up to maintain your movement.

"Covid-19 didn't come to kill travel or business, it came in to bring a new shift that people want to travel safe, in an organized way and that's what we are bringing to the table with this rebrand," said Kithitu.

Balala noted that innovation, digitization, and expansion to leisure travel is a sure win for Hemingways Travel and any other sector players looking to thrive in the tourism and travel sector as the industry continues to recover.

"Covid-19 gave us an opportunity to leapfrog to technology, the Hemingways travel is a testament to what we need to do as businesses, which is to rethink your business model on how to create better connections with your customers," said Agnes Mucuha, CEO Kenya Association of Travel Agents(KATA).

The tourism industry was one of the most hit sectors by the pandemic with almost 1 million jobs lost according to industry data.

Even so, the industry is steadily recovering with the country's tourism earnings growing by 65.4 per cent to Sh146.51billion in 2021 compared to Sh88.56billion in 2020.

This has been credited to the implementation of various interventions by the government to mitigate the effects of the pandemic on the sector, including a focus on domestic tourism.

Balala noted that despite the improvement, the industry had not recovered properly and much is needed from airline connectivity to affordability of products to ensure a full recovery.

"For 2022, we are hoping to surpass the 2021 revenues we don't just want numbers," Balala said.

According to the Annual Tourism Sector Performance Report 2021, new vision strategies such as digitization have supported sector recovery and Hemingways Travel has made significant enhancements to its platform to meet changing industry needs.

April 01, 2022