 Welcome back. This is why two-four business Tuesday. Yes, and my name is Beira Marsava and today we are discussing Masters of Hospitality and Tourism in Kenya. Are you planning to take a holiday trip this first season? What is the show for you? This is meant specifically for you and you're going to dive into the discussion and to help me discuss this is two amazing gentlemen who have Brian we're there on my left. Brian we're there is an economic analyst and we also have Alfred Maruki right from African Safari's Endestination. Karibuni sana gentlemen. Yes, yes. Okay, okay, but firstly take this opportunity just to introduce tell us what you do, how you do it, where we do it and the company and the name of your company. Let's start with Alfred. We usually do marketing and marketing campaigns for Hospitality Service Providers that is lodges, villas, resorts, hotels, travel agents and also airlines. We do that through listing on our website so we reach out to these Hospitality Service Providers to list on our website and from there we are able to to market them. We don't do a lot of, we actually don't do the booking. Many people think that we operate as other two agents but we don't do that for us it's just a marketing agency. A marketing agency. Yes, thank you so much. And Brian, what are you? So my name is Brian Jorugi. I'm an economist but a profession. And I'm also an entrepreneur generally doing business in software and data analytics and therefore I'm able to interact with both local and international data. That's why I get most of my insights. Alfred, what are your expectations considering you're from the industry? What are your expectations during this festive season? We expected a lot of bookings through our website actually as I'm checking through the backend and finding some of the hotels that are listed with us from the coast are almost now fully booked. So we expected more people to actually go to the coast because the coast at this festive season, Christmas season people don't really are not concentrating on cost, sorry. They're just looking at where they can just go and spend just away from their normalizing. Okay and Brian, do you think domestic tourism has really picked or is it still like those days where even local tourism is just a struggle? Service providers have to struggle even to negotiate the locals to even give them some incentives. Do you think it has really picked up or it's still the same? I believe it has picked up extensively because unlike traditionally when we used to have just site viewing, maybe you'd go to game parks and you watch the animals, the big five. Nowadays we have seen the rise of experiences. Like maybe you find some people going to ziplining and those are the kind of things that are now boosting the tourism sector. And so I believe that domestic tourism has risen and is going to expand into the future. Okay, okay, let me go back to Alfred. Do domestic, okay, let me put it this way. The only destination locals like is Mombasa. Are there other destinations that are actually attracting people? Because you find cases like in December, Kilamutu, everyone is just going to Mombasa. You go to the beach, it's fully packed. Are there other destinations where people prefer? The destination like Naivasha or Laiden, we have also the hippocamp. There are very, very nice places for people to go and just have a good time. So I think it's slowly breaking from people just wanting to go to Malindi and the South Coast and all that. And it's now going to Naivasha. Naivasha is of late has been really raising and boosting those destinations. Especially in camping, people are really enjoying camping because I've ever been there in such an adventurous place to be. So Mombasa slowly, apart from December where many people flock there, we have Naivasha coming up and also Nakuru and also sides of Nanyuki Onyui to Nanyuki like Anka Resort. There's so many nice places over there. So Naivasha, Mombasa, Nakuru, we have also Mount Kenya. Yes, Mount Kenya. Okay, is it advisable Alfred? Is it advisable in the economical aspect? Is it advisable for guys to go on holiday for December or they can go during other seasons? When it's low season, I know there's peak, right? There's peak and there's low. The reason why people have been going to Mombasa and actually when you think of vacation in Kenya, Mombasa is the first, maybe the first destination in your mind is because for a long time tourism in Kenya has been based on the natural resources. It's just tourist attraction. You go to maybe the health gate, you go and hike. But now you realize that as the experiences are rising, people now want to go and release. And therefore if at all you don't have to go and visit a site, you can go and have new experiences. For example, ziplining. Something like ziplining, someone can go anytime right from January through December. And therefore I believe right now you cannot just recommend someone to go during the festive season. They can go anytime as long as you are ready and you are able. But traditionally we locals prefer enjoy during this December and during this season actually it's expensive Alfred, right? Yeah, very expensive because the service providers in hotels would want also to control the traffic that is coming to their facility. So even for them hiking may not be necessary to increase the profit but also to control the traffic. We have heard counties like Nyeri county which has published books, made a documentary, uploaded them on YouTube, updated their website. Is what they are doing is just marketing their destination. Do you think other counties or other destinations have done the same thing as well marketing their destination to attract actually even local tourism? Not necessarily the people coming from outside but from locals. I think not all counties have done the marketing because now the drive to have counties gear their tourism sector is just at infant level maybe in the second or third year. And therefore most counties are maybe especially in Central Kenya but we do not have many natural attractions compared to maybe Rift Valley and western Kenya. So now you cannot just start marketing until you have identified what are you going to market. So I believe those that have already marketed those who had clear attractions and others are continuing to look for areas. Okay last year that is 2018 the tourism, Kenya tourism earning rose to at least 157 billion shillings. Do you expect this year to rise depending compared to last year or to be just the same or lower? Especially during this season? I might not say yes or no taking into consideration the harsh economic times that we have experienced in 2018 especially in businesses so many people might not have a lot to spend. So yes or no but that has been a very harsh economically. Okay and what should be done to locals to attract to attack them to go to this destination? Should they be given incentives like buy to buy get one free something like that? I think also the government we also need government incentives you know because when you look at Magiko Kenya it also needs to boost the small media enterprises in the business in the tourism sector because on the ground you will find that these small travel agents are really doing a lot to take people to these destinations so if the government can only boost them and not just concentrate on you know big ideas but come to the ground and be able to to boost sources as a means. Yes you want to add something. I believe the decline if at all there will be a decline for which I am very doubtful in the general performance of the tourism industry would not depend on the state of the current economy because domestic tourism isn't the only source of revenue for the tourism sector. In the recent years we have seen the government trying to promote other aspects of tourism for example you have the conventions whereby now you are going to attract business tourism and that one has really grown and therefore whereas the consumer expenditure might be low which means a decline in domestic tourism maybe the international tourism might not decline. You brought up something very interesting and I will jump into conference tourism we've had so many meetings especially this year we've had so many international meetings although Rwanda has overtaken us in that but we've had a lot of conference tourism where we have meetings there using our hotels using our destination conferences and everything else is that a boost to our economy? First of all I want to talk about Rwanda. I don't believe Rwanda has overtaken us because in the recent report from the all the way from the world economic forum Kenya ranks at position 82 in terms of tourism and travel competitiveness and it is number six in Africa whereas Rwanda is above 100 position 100 so Kenya is still a competitive destination for above Rwanda and so therefore I don't believe that we are somewhere below Rwanda. The conference of tourism has a diversity now going to counties I've seen that in Kisomo in 2021 they will be hosting their free cities summit which will host around 10,000 delegates which is a good idea and they can also go to other counties so that they can cover up all the areas that might have potential to boost tourism. Okay let me just take you back what should be done to to create demand during low seasons? What should be done? What should be given? What are those incentives that should be given to domestic especially to locals to increase the demand during low season especially during January, February? I think it's just to to do more campaigns to remove this narrative that tourism is just for foreigners and to take advantage of what the environment has to offer and what the domestic tourism has to offer because many people have this mentality that tourism is just for the wazungus Yeah sure so if they are only told that and also made it to identify affordable places to go and enjoy themselves Okay during this low season Brian during during this low season you could find some hotels a closing shop was their planning wrong? What is the issue? Why do they close down during this season? Low season you realize that the competition also in the industry is very stiff so sometimes now during the low season as you're calling it it means now the demand for the tourism services is low especially now for the for experiences and natural viewings but now for the few businesses that target the business class tourism they are not very many so we have a bigger chunk of our tourism industry targets the sightseeing experiences and therefore when people are not in the mood in the mood for all the atmosphere does it is not encouraging for those experiences you expect that they don't have any other way to attract tourism There have been cases of fake agents you know they lower the wazungus that you call them they lower the wazungus they tell them as we are reliable agents you know just coming but you have to pay 50% and once they arrive in Kenya he will be too you guys disappear and how is it affecting others as well because I know these affect others they will end up to be a trust issue guys will not trust you how is it affecting the other stakeholders? Of course it makes the consumers those consumers lose confidence even on the authentic travel agents and it's very unfortunate and the government needs to put a strict measures against such people and that's why we have the Kenya tourism board and coming up with policies so that we can also for the authentic ones like us African survivors nations but is it doing enough? It's not really doing enough because some of these businesses are even briefcase businesses which is very unfortunate because once they have done that even being traced becomes even impossible so also the government needs to put strict measures especially the Kenya tourism board to actually make sure that these agents have got the licenses the respective licenses to operate their businesses and also the businesses should be registered Okay final comments Brian as we end the show final comments to guys where can they go should they how much they should spend We believe as I know the deal to our activity is experiences because now we have been having I don't know why I am like agenist the natural I'm not agenist generally but I believe now it's time we uplift the experiences they assume a camping sites they are places you can go in for example in the Muru there is this mud something people are racing in the mud and I've seen it has a very high traffic so those are the kind of things people should try over the holiday but the destination should come up with these creative things as well Okay I might also add to what he has said that we need to diversify our marketing for tourism and look at music tourism sports tourism culinary tourism you know cultural tourism like this Naturopana cultural festival these festivals are very good they can also be very good boost for tourism especially music tourism now that it's been given to much concentration here Okay and how can people reach you how can people contact you can mention in social media handles as well and your websites visit our website that is africansafaris.com on Twitter and Instagram is african underscore safaris and Facebook is african safaris and destinations Okay Brian how can people contact you yeah I go by the name bn brand and they can also reach us through the company website that is convenience.co.ke okay yeah okay thank you so much go from my team time to join me well yes yes that was Brian with her that is economic analyst and Alfred Muriyuki a CEO of african safaris yes my name is Muriyama Masawa and that marks the end of the show till next time God bless you good night and see you the buzz is up next