Success story
Kenya’s tourism marketing, beach and air growth strategies
Capabilitiess: Marketing plan, Implementation plan , Sustainable tourism, Sales & commercialisation, Online marketing , Brand management, Training, Positioning, Experiential system , Organisation restructuring
Client: Kenya Tourism Board
Location: Kenya
The overall objective of the assignment was to drive Kenya’s tourism transformation by reviewing and addressing challenges facing air access, tourism product and marketing, as well as coastal region transformation and development. In order to achieve the arrivals and revenues foreseen in Kenya's Vision 2030, THR developed this triple strategy. Once the marketing strategy was completed, THR offered support for its implementation.
The challenge
Background
Kenya had lost its leadership of the safari business, suffering from a lack of differentiation and a clear product development strategy. Additionally, in spite of the pristine quality of its beaches, the Kenyan beach product had lost its competitiveness. Moreover, Kenya suffers from a lack of connectivity with important source markets.
Key Objectives
The overall objective of the plan was to drive Kenya’s tourism transformation by reviewing and addressing challenges facing air access, product development, branding & marketing, as well as coastal region transformation and development.
The approach
In the Plan, THR addressed the challenges identified in 3 critical areas to reach Kenya’s Tourism Vision 2030:
Branding & Marketing: Assessment of current market priorities, brand image, marketing activities, in-market presence model and organization of Kenyan Tourism Board (KTB) in order to improve marketing performance and therefore reduce brand gaps.
Air Access: Review Kenya’s air growth strategies with an aim of increasing the air seat capacity from major tourist source markets and ultimately attain 6 million tourists by the year 2030.
Beach Tourism Product: Revamp the beach tourism product with an aim of making Kenya competitive, attractive for investors, and offer value for money to its visitors.
Value created
Kenya's tourist arrivals start their recovery with a 10% growth the year after the plan was delivered and during THR’s support in the implementation phase.
Branding & Marketing: The industry of Kenya has regained its trust in KTB, since they saw programs were being implemented and there is a proper engagement framework in place.
- A whole new communication strategy and digital approach was being implemented to close Kenya’s brand and conversion gaps.
- Product development, after the strategy was delivered, was guided by clear priorities and programs.
- A new organization was in place, fully aligned with the strategy.
Beach Tourism Product Strategy: Government was implementing a plan to regenerate existing product assets, and identify sustainable new opportunities.
Air Growth Strategy: The governance model was in place to support the implementation of initiatives for air transport growth.