The Kenya Tourism Board (KTB) has commenced a joint promotional campaign with leading Indian travel agents targeting potential Indian travelers. The partnership with FCM Travel Solutions India, Pvt Ltd, and Yatra will aim to support tourism recovery in Kenya through building visitor confidence in Indian travelers to Kenya. The campaign will prioritize travelers into Kenya from India with each partner expected to provide maximum mileage on their platforms from potential clients with designed offers and curated itineraries.
The month-long campaign is targeted at populated PAN India cities which include Mumbai, Delhi, Gujarat, and Bangalore among others where most tourists come from. Commenting about the campaign, KTB CEO Dr. Betty Radier says: “with the full resumption of commercial flights between the two countries, we are exploring avenues of collaborations with key travel partners to ensure that Magical Kenya is on the radar of potential visitors.
This campaign will ensure that we showcase the destination to millions of Indians who are looking for authentic experiences and adventures.” Dr. Radier added that partnership with operators was crucial because they have direct contact with travelers and hence can influence decisions “With over a billion people, India remains a key market that shortly could move from an emerging to a key source market. We, therefore, need to harness this potential to pull more Indian visitors into Kenya, we shall work with more
providers and agents to actualize this. Going forward, we want to further our efforts towards promoting Kenya as an ideal destination for people seeking a quality vacation or business or leisure trip” Through the partnership, over 300 passenger conversions to Kenya are expected through specialized packages and promotional tactics such as out-of-house marketing, push notifications, GDN, and social media marketing.
Additionally, it will increase Kenya’s brand awareness and generate inquiries in the market to boost arrival numbers from the Indian market.
Two years after the COVID-19 outbreak pushed India to impose one of the strictest lockdowns in the world, the country has seen an end to all virus-related containment measures. Even though COVID-19 is still a threat across the world, India has decided to open all economic activities similar to the pre-COVID times.
Already, over 1.9 billion COVID-19 vaccines have been delivered in the country with at least 88% of the population being vaccinated which is the largest number globally. The Post-pandemic era in India is witnessing a growing need for personalization and real-time connectivity, with an increasing number of Indians turning to travel agencies and trip planners, especially as they seek more affordable alternatives.
Currently, several small and mid-range travel agents are expecting operations to resume sooner than expected. In 2019, before the pandemic, Kenya received 122,649 travelers from India with the destination already receiving a 55 percent improvement in numbers compared to last year during this period. Statistics currently show that Kenya will receive about 80,000 travelers from India by the close of 2022 which will be a major coup.
