Kenya woos Gujaratis

The Kenya Tourist Board (KTB) is going all out to woo the travel-happy Gujarati community. KTB is now launching a dedicated Gujarati website www.magicalkenya.com to lure more tourists into the county.  

According to a survey commissioned by KTB, there are 1 million households in India with annual incomes amounting to Rs10 million. “And more than 50 per cent of these millionaires are Gujaratis,” says RA Goenka, the Kenyan Consul in India.

The study also showed that there are millionaires spread across Maharashtra, Punjab and Delhi and the board is now planning to woo these pockets too.

The KTB is keenly aware of the fact that Indians continue to flock to Kenya even during recession though Kenya is a destination for leisure travel. “In 2009, tourist arrivals from India to Kenya increased by 4.8 per cent,” says Jennifer Opondo, director of marketing, KTB. “Most of this growth happened in December 2009 when we saw lot of honeymooners from India.”

The KTB is also trying hard to wean Bollywood’s away from pretty European locales. It plans to study the needs of film production houses and position itself according. “India has seen enough of Switzerland, US and the UK and Bollywood now needs to diversify. 

People want to see new places. So we will be meeting film production houses such as Yashraj to understand the dynamics of film production,” says Opondo.