Strathmore School of Tourism and Hospitality

The Centre for Tourism and Hospitality (CTH) of Strathmore University has been commissioned by the Kenya Tourism Federation (KTF) to conduct a survey on the level of awareness on the Single Tourist Visa (STV), an arrangement that was recently adopted by Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda, and the use of National ID by the citizens of the three countries to cross borders.

 

The project will focus on awareness amongst cross border travelers, as well as policy enforcement institutions and agencies of the government. This study comes in the wake of challenges facing tourism in Kenya and the general expectation amongst the tourism fraternity; that the STV would be part of the solution to the myriad challenges facing the tourism industry in our country.

 

CTH has put together a team of researchers to carry out the study and has involved select hospitality and tourism students in data collection. A team of three students each were sent to the different borders in Busia and Malaba, and at Mombasa airport and JKIA.

 

A Focus Group Discussion (FGD) was also conducted which sought to address the following objectives:

  • Establishing the level of awareness amongst the travel and tourism trade and allied fraternity
  • Examining the general expectations in the light of this arrangement
  • Identifying the challenges and barriers to this cause
  • Exploring mitigating frameworks for the challenges and barriers
  • Proposing mechanisms to be used to foster closer engagement between the government, institutions and private sector with regards to STV and use of National ID to cross borders

 

The FGD participants were representatives from the different hospitality and tourism sectors. They included: the academia, hotel industry, travel and tour companies, private tourism enterprises, government tourism institutions, and county tourism representatives.

 

The result of the study will be presented to the Kenya Tourism Federation before it is made public.