Nairobi, Sunday 18th September 2022: Kenya Tourism Board (KTB) is leveraging regional golf clubs across the country to promote domestic tourism.

KTB Chief executive officer Dr. Betty Radier yesterday said that domestic tourism cushioned the tourism sector during the Covid-19 pandemic period when international travelers were at all-time low.

“More than before, the domestic market has proved its resilience during hard times as seen during the covid-19 period and this is the reason we are exploring opportunities to tap into its potential,” said Radier.

The CEO was speaking in Nakuru Golf club during a magical Kenya golf tour tournament to boost a domestic promotion campaign dubbed ‘You deserve a holiday’ launched a month ago.

KTB has lined up golf tour tournaments in ten golf clubs distributed across key tourism attractions in the country to popularize the six-month long campaign.

“Besides corporate and mall activations to promote this campaign, we will be hosting golf

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Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) head of marketing Gladys Kosgei said National parks are set to benefit with increased visitation as a result of the campaign that targets to open up all the national parks across the country.

She said the ‘’you deserve a holiday’’ campaign will complement Zuru Kenya parks campaign by KWS aimed at encouraging Kenyans to visit all parks including the marine parks in coastal Kenya.

“We are all into promoting domestic tourism and since the Covid-19 pandemic; our strategy has been to harness the potential of domestic tourism to support the sector during hard times and to sustainably conserve and protect Kenya’s wildlife heritage,” said Kosgei.

She disclosed the visitation into the parks from the domestic market has surpassed the best performing year 2019 by 48 percent with a noticeable growth in adventure service.

According to available statistics by Tourism Research Institute (TRI), domestic tourism has stepped in to cushion the sector during the peak of covid-19 pandemic.

The domestic travelers recorded improved performance with bed occupancy for 2021/22 financial year estimated at 4.0 million. This is an increase estimate of 56.9% compared to 2.6 million recorded the same period in the 202/20 financial year.