The tri-state Northern Corridor integration initiative is currently pursuing alternative tourist markets to salvage revenues from the sector which have been affected by negative travel advisories from several traditional markets.

Jointly, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda market the region as a common tourist destination under a single tourist visa which allows tourists to any of the three partner states to travel freely around the three countries without seeking any other travel document, or paying more.

However beginning last year, the region’s tourism stakeholders have seen their revenues go down owing to travel advisories by a number of European governments to countries in the EAC region. Most affected by the advisories has been Kenya following a series of attacks by Al Shabaab militants but the effects have been felt across the region.

Tourism stakeholders are now considering new markets to mitigate the impacts of the advisories.

Yamina Karitanyi, the Chief Tourism Officer at Rwanda Development Board, said the new target markets mostly comprise of countries the region engages in business. They include Australia, Singapore, India and North African countries.

"For a long time we have been engaging the East for business purposes, we plan to engage them as potential tourists as well,” Karitanyi said.

The stakeholders will also seek to capitalise on the growing middle class population with disposable income in the regional population they say did not receive much attention in the past.

The players say that regional markets are more predictable and sustainable compared to international markets given the trend of prohibitive travel advisories.

Earlier this year, at a Northern Corridor joint tourism marketing committee forum, the stakeholders said that they had spotted a positive trend whereby domestic and regional tourism had gone up, something that impacted positively on trade.

"If we can make the most of the integration process and have more tourists from the region and the expat community living in the region, we are likely to see a better yield in the coming days,” Karitanyi told this paper.

The East African Business Council sees the travel advisories as ‘irresponsible statements’ that are hurting the region’s economy.

Dennis Karera, the council’s chairperson, said that the ‘few incidents’ that had led to the advisories are not limited to the region, but can occur anywhere in the world.

"In the recent past we have seen terror incidents across the world, including in Europe, but we have not rushed to issue advisories against their countries,” Karera said.  He adds that some of the advisories could amount to economic sabotage with intention to divert business from the East African region.  

In a recent interview with this paper, Edwin Muzahura, the marketing manager of Uganda Tourism Board, said that coverage by international media outlets had further worsened the situation as they had over hyped security incidents that have occurred in the region.

Way forward

Joseph Birori, the Managing Director of Primate Safaris, said that, as a way forward, tour operators in the country and the entire region were organising familiarisation trips for members of the international community for them to see firsthand that the region was safe for tourism.

However, the difficult times for the tourism stakeholders has served to increase their commitment to develop better marketing and promotional strategies.  

The integration initiative is jointly promoting activities of member states in international tourism fairs such as Guilin International Tourism Expo in China and South Africa’s Indaba Fair.

In a strategic move to step up their joint promotion efforts, Northern Corridor countries have agreed on a tourism events calendar where each member country gets a period to focus on a flagship tourism event.

Rwanda was allocated September with the annual gorrilla naming ceremony as the flagship event, Uganda took June to host the Martyrs’ Day, while Kenya has Magical Kenya expo in October. 

Birori said that the events calendar will facilitate marketing of the region’s events.

Despite the challenges, countries in the region have been favourably ranked by various global tourism indexes, including the World Economic Forum tourism and competitiveness report for 2015.