Does Kenya need Vision 2030, its strategic plan for the next 23 years? Or would 2020 vision be more useful?From Thursday's "Business Daily" in Nairobi. . . .
"Repositioning of the Coast Circuit, opening under-utilised parks and providing niche products have been unveiled as the key drivers towards the government achieving Vision 2030 through the tourism sector. The strategy aims at making Kenya one of the top 10 long haul tourist destinations, offering diverse and high end experiences by 2012 to a target five million tourists."
Five million tourists by 2012? That's some target, when just over a million visited in 2006. The article goes on to say that roads are a problem. And if their figures are right, they will continue to be, as the story quotes Ksh3million having been allocated to road repairs on access roads to tourist sites. That's a bit more than £20,000 ($40,000) which, even on Kenya's famously low wages (£1–2, or $2–4 a day is about the level manual workers and hotel staff can expect) won't go very far. As Tourism Concern's "Behind the Smile: The Tsunami of Tourism" showed, Kenya's success as a tourist economy depends on unsustainable levels of exploitation of some of the world's poorest people.
Maybe proper labour laws are a separate issue. A good start would be finishing the Nairobi to Mombasa highway (the photo here was taken by the front passenger while we were driving towards Nairobi. . .).
With Kenya's weather, and the sort of rains that are now common, roads are going to need repairing more and more frequently. So how about building a brand-new, high-speed, wide-gauge line linking Mombasa with Nairobi and Kampala – a futuristic railway running oversize rolling stock – from the Indian Ocean across the Rift Valley to central Africa, perhaps carrying 3000 passengers and freight. This could serve as a blueprint for the future of mass transportation in similarly suitable environments. Compared with building the same line in Europe, construction costs on much of the low-population-density route would be minimal; exports would boom; the tourists would come; the wildlife and the environment would be preserved; and Kenya would once again have an asset to be proud of, running alongside its famous, nineteenth-century “lunatic line”.
Just a thought.
Excellent thought about the 'high-speed' connection between nairobi and Mombasa!!!! Wow, 5 million by 2012?! Thanks for the info!!
ReplyDeleteA useful observation richard. But i dont think the figures are right. I would suspect that its 30 million at least and more likely 300 million if its a figure for the whole country. Check your source. Otherwise the dream is super. Kenya and East africa does really need a 'super transprot' system and that would do wonder for the tourism and overall economy. How about a cable car over the great rift. and better yet over the escarpment at the 'suguta valley' the spot you talked of in your old 1988 rough guide to kenya
ReplyDeleteIt's a lofty ideal, and current events are proving it to be just that. With the present scale of deforestation, poaching, political incompetence there will be nothing for the tourists to see by 2012. 2012 IS an election year as well
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