No abstract

The World Tourism Organization (WTO) asserts tourism as a vehicle for economic development and poverty alleviation (EDPA) in developing countries. Among EDPA strategies, WTO highlights small enterprise development, stressing government support in such development. Tourism in Kenya is foreign owned, so economic benefits leak from the local economy. It emphasizes safari/coastal products and exploits the southern and coastal regions in an anachronistic and colonial model of tourism development. A new, postcolonial model of tourism development involving small indigenous enterprises and promoting cultural products to new markets would seem an obvious vehicle for EDPA in Kenya. Thus, Kenya's capacity to promote the development of indigenous enterprises is of interest. This study of 12 indigenously owned Kenyan tourism enterprises and six support organizations explores the challenges to tourism entrepreneurship in Kenya. The 12 enterprises fall into three categories: community-based enterprises (CBEs), and formal and informal individually owned enterprises (IOEs). Formal IOE managers had independent means and were well educated and appropriately experienced through public sector careers to deal with bureaucracy. CBEs (community initiatives offering products/services based on the natural environment) employed competent managers to address skills gaps. CBEs provide paths for skills development while raising community tourism awareness. However, community tourism development is externally driven, often by nongovernmental organizations, and can be regarded as a form of neocolonialism. Kenya's draft National Tourism Policy favors the development of CBEs as a way to enhance linkage. This article concludes that formalizing tourism enterprises in Kenya would require significant government investment in support mechanisms to provide sustainable tourism development opportunities for Kenyan communities.

The tourism industry is poised to command a significant role in the economy of Rwanda, a low-income developing country that is rapidly transforming into a service-oriented economy. However, the industry does not exist as a distinct entity in a country’s national accounts leading to difficulties in estimating its role. Besides, the existence of a significant informal sector aggravates the situation. This study used tourism satellite accounts approach to estimate the economic contribution of tourism. Using primary data from various tourism surveys, six core tables of the tourism satellite accounts framework are presented to estimate the direct economic contribution of tourism to Rwanda’s economy in 2014. In this year, a total of 1,219,529 international tourists visited the country while 560,000 residents took part in domestic tourism trips resulting in internal tourism expenditure/consumption amounting to RWF 261.2bn. This generated an estimated RWF 197.5bn as gross value added by the tourism characteristic industries. Direct tourism gross value added was estimated at RWF 120.0bn while direct tourism gross domestic product, a measure of the direct effects of internal tourism consumption on gross domestic product of the economy was computed at RWF 128.3bn (or 2.5% of Rwanda’s gross domestic product) in the year. In addition to the core six tourism satellite accounts tables, the levels of tourism employment (about 89,000 jobs) tourism gross fixed capital formation (slightly over RWF 200bn) and tourism collective consumption (over RWF 7bn) were estimated. Under this study, the international methodological recommendations on tourism satellite accounts were implemented for Rwanda. The contribution of tourism to gross domestic product, employment, investment, and collective consumption was quantified and estimated. Informal sector tourism activities were included in these estimates. Gross fixed capital formation and collective consumption estimates are tentative due to conceptual considerations documented by the methodological framework.

This chapter analyses the current scenario for tourism development in Kenya, identifying that the extant model of tourism development is based on an anachronistic 'colonial' model, with tourism receipts by foreign-owned companies leaking from Kenya rather than contributing to in-country poverty alleviation. The chapter goes on to describe an 'ideal scenario', with tourism development owned and controlled by Kenyans. The chapter places special emphasis on the potential role of indigenous and small and medium-sized enterprises, in line with the UNDP sustainable livelihoods approach and the criteria for poverty alleviation developed by the World Tourism Organization. Obstacles to the achievement of the ideal scenario are identified and discussed. In addressing these obstacles, it is suggested that there needs to be a policy framework for tourism development that is integrated into wider country-building strategies to achieve the optimum exploitation of tourism resources for Kenya.

This study sought to investigate on hotel investors’ perspectives on the role of the public sector in Kenya’s competitiveness as an investment destination for the tourism industry. The study adopted an exploratory research design involving 24 executives drawn from hotel companies that operated 3- to 5-star hotels in Kenya. The study found out that entrepreneurship, and legislation and regulation functions were considered the most significant roles of Kenya’s public sector in creating a competitive environment for the tourism sector. The study further found out that the public sector roles of coordination, planning and stimulation were considered of less significance to attracting hotel investments. The paper recommends that the government seeks to address the noted concerns and notes the need for further research on the efficacy of the different investment promotion initiatives in view of the amount of resources that the government commits in terms of incentives to the sector.