Stakeholders in the tourism industry have expressed concern over under exploitation of the tourism potential in Western Kenya.
The stakeholders said even though there are lots of opportunities and advantages, the area still lags behind in the tourism sector compared to Nairobi, Mombasa and other parts of the county.
Speaking during a stakeholders forum in Kisumu on Thursday, they said marketing and development of tourism potential needed to be beefed up.
Lake Victoria Tourism Association (LVTA) Chairman Dedan Alao said the meeting was meant to profile the challenges in the sector and propose interventional measures so as to bridge the gap.
“The county governments have brought a lot of opportunities and our aim is to maximise some of these so that we can have same traffic of tourists like it happens in other parts of the country,” he said.
Thomas Ouko from Kisumu County’s Directorate of Tourism said the county government is going out to identify and develop the sites in a bid to provide infrastructural development to increase their accessibility.
“Not all the tourism sites have been devolved, but we are working towards achieving the six per cent of county revenue going to tourism. We hope this will turn around the sector,” said Ouko.
His counterpart from the national government Kezia Odemba said it takes long to develop tourism potentials and it was upon stakeholders to heavily invest in the sector.
“We have to diversify tourism and develop projects which are loved by the tourists,” she said.