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Professional LinkUp Event: CEO - Tourism Trust Fund
Date Published: Tuesday February 26, 2008
The second Professional Link-up event was held on 3rd of July 2007 at the Grand Regency hotel, Nairobi. Dr. Dan Kagagi, CEO of the Tourism Trust Fund (TTF) was the main speaker at this event and his speech mainly focused on the tourism industry in Kenya and the TTF. (Link to first event).
Who is Dr. Kagagi?
Dr. Kagagi mentioned some of his experiences and achievements; including attaining a PhD before the age of 25, creation of Corporate & Pension Trust Services Company and becoming a CEO at 31. All in all, he has an impressive resume.
Tourism Industry
Tourism is the biggest contributor to Kenya’s economy running up to KES 100 billion in total revenues. Tourism income is mainly from export earnings, exchequer revenue and employment, making up 12.7% of total Kenyan GDP). Despite all that Kenya as a country is still operating way below its potential as a tourism location. According to Dr. Kagagi, one thing under cutting Kenya’s potential is its minimal marketing budget. Countries like South Africa, Morocco, and Seychelles market themselves aggressively and get rewarded tenfold for it a fact which to Dr. Kagagi is quite tragic as Kenya has so much more to offer than any of these countries can ever hope to.
Dr. Kagagi pointed out some of the areas that need utmost attention for Kenya to reach its intended tourist target which included; eliminating misperceptions about the industry, spreading tourism products beyond beach and wildlife, encouraging other industry to market and sell their products to tourists, exploiting new opportunities for new tourism product and many more.
Dr. Kagagi said there was need to embrace the changing markets with tourism was now moving into other areas, such as; weddings and honeymoons destinations, adventure tourism, volunteerism, health and wellness, sports tourism, cultural tourism, education, business tourism and meetings, conferences and incentives. Delving into these other areas will help erase the limitations that exist in the range of tourism products offered.
Question and Answer session
The talk was followed by a question and answer session with one participant raising the issue on the substandard services awarded to the local tourist as opposed to the treatment extended to foreign tourist who are deemed as more deserving by those in the tourism industry. According to Dr. Kagagi, TTF is working on altering these.
In attendance
The event was attended by over 75 professionals including the Mike Njeru PR and Communications Manager for Kengen who were the sponsors of the event and Luande Oneko on behalf of his father the late Hon. Achieng Oneko who gave a speech and presented the Kenyan Hero Award to Dr. Kagagi. The awards are part of the ongoing Kenyan Hero Initiative organized by PMS
ABOUT PROFESSIONAL LINKUP
Professionals Link Up nite is a forum sponsored by the Professional Marketing Services (PMS) that seeks to refresh professionals with thought provoking insights from top decision makers and industry leaders in Kenya. For more information on PMS: http://www.pms.co.ke
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