It took them three months, but they all came round to the realization that the only way to rescue the tourism industry in Kenya, especially at the Coast, is for the Government of Kenya to become the number one tourist agent in the country. It is all about the simplest of maths; the number of Kenyans of working age who have jobs that leave them with large dollops of disposable income is small, and growing smaller with the fierce competition from the Chinese in hitherto peculiarly Kenyan occupations.
President Kenyatta the Younger has withdrawn the Rotich Circular banning the GoK from checking into privately-owned hotels. (It doesn't escape him that it was a Circular that everyone with a spine ignored when it was issued.) He has offered tax incentives. He has taken a firm stand in paying out tax rebates owed to players in the hotel industry. He has ordered the entire firmament of the GoK to promote domestic tourism. (But surely, he must know that few Kenyans will take advantage of the opportunities to tour areas beyond their own ridges.)
President Kenyatta the Younger ascended the throne of Kenyan politics at what must have been a propitious time. Kenya was conducting general elections under a brand-spanking new constitution. The Minority Party was, and remains, an irritant to be treated with ill-disguised contempt. (Ndung'u Githinji doesn't hide his particular loathing for the Deputy Minority Leader.) The Unofficial Leader of the Opposition had been sidelined and so too had been his sidekick. (His recent runaway mouth seems to have pointed to deeper psychological problems for the former Number Two.) Mwai Kibaki left him with a reasonably well-stocked Treasury. Infrastructure construction was moving forward at an impressive clip; the Chinese Sugar Daddy was spending and spending big on Kenya. And because there wasn't going to be a run-off, he had six billion reasons to make plans for the future.
Events have not been propitious for the President and this has not been felt more than in the hotel and tourism sector. Since that old mzungu lady was kidnapped from Lamu to Somalia and her husband murdered, the industry has never recovered. Like a metronome that picks up speed, kidnappings morphed into lone grenade attacks which morphed to sophisticated sieges and car-bombings. No one was spared in the campaign of terror; even religious establishments became targets of gunmen and bombers. The intelligence "chatter" pointed to an escalation. The mzungu governments panicked (or acted with cynical calculation) issued "travel advisories" against visiting Kenya or parts of Kenya and tour operators sent planes to evacuate their clients back home.
The initial Presidential reaction was ill-thought and petulant; it was laced with anger and intemperate in what it communicated. sending out the hapless tourism Cabinet Secretary with Tembea Kenya did not seem to make things better. Now the National Executive is proposing handing over hundreds of millions of shillings in the form of undelivered rebates to Kenya's hotel and tour sector in order "to improve liquidity in the industry" and grant them tax breaks that others might not and, quite probably, shall not get enjoy. (Whatever the President does, he will meet cynics like this blogger and outright hostility from other quarters.)
This blogger believes that the presidency is really a bed of roses; it smells really nice, but it has some really sharp thorns which, no matter how much power you wield, you will never be able to get away from. It would help if Kenyatta the Younger enjoyed the same power and legitimacy like Kenyatta the Elder and Daniel Moi; both were kings in all but name. Their word was law. They ruled without fear. And one of them actually achieved an African king's dream: he was a President for Life!
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