Conservancies set to benefit through the Magical Kenya signature experience
Photo Courtesy: Basecamp Explorer
The Kenya Tourism Board (KTB) and KWCA have partnered to market and promote Kenya’s conservancies as a niche tourist destination at national, regional and international levels through the Magical Kenya Signature Experience (MKSE) program. The program aims to promote a compilation of unique, authentic and exceptional Kenyan traveller experiences aligned to Magical Kenya’s brand promise.
Currently, Kenya’s tourism is oversimplified, providing only wildlife safari, and sun and beach products, marketed seasonally, in short, hurried trips to a few crowded destinations. Kenya is missing out on the opportunity to market conservancies as a unique market segment. According to a world bank report, conservancies provided only 1.3 percent tourism share recognising the great potential they offer to diversify Kenya’s tourism product and grow the tourism market share.
Through a draft Memorandum of Understanding between KTB and KWCA developed for signing in December 2020, the two partners will work to address the above challenges and plan for a tourism recovery phase to expand the tourism market share for wildlife conservancies through wider listing of conservancies destinations, products, facilities and activities, and enhance investment and tourism flow into wildlife conservancies. Additionally, it will stimulate sustainable conservancy growth and mainstream conservancies in government tourism strategies.
KTB through the MKSE will work to enhance the capacity of wildlife conservancies to design and share their unique experiences with a view to providing Kenya with comparative advantage as a destination of choice as part of re-engineering the safari experiences, resulting in growing the income share from tourism for local communities.
KWCA on the other hand will develop a comprehensive plan for accessing information and opportunities on marketing campaigns and travel exhibitions designed to showcase wildlife conservancies products and experiences. The two organisations will also develop joint tourism plans, collate information and data needed to promote the unique experiences offered by wildlife conservancies as a differentiated tourism destination.