Tourism as a Tool for Reducing Poverty - Essay Example

Tourism As A Tool For Reducing Poverty Kenya has variety geographical features reflected through its coastlines, flat lands, mountains, and landscapes. Its location is on the east of African coast at a latitude of 4o north and 4osouth, and a longitude of 34o East and 41o East (Adholla, Mkangi and Mbindyo, 2008). Kenya is bordered by Uganda in the west, Tanzania to the southwest, Somalia to the east and Sudan, and Ethiopia to the north. The Indian Ocean borders Kenya on the southeastern part near Somalia. Moreover, to the west of the country lies the Lake Victoria that borders Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. The image below shows a map of Kenya, its neighboring countries, Lake Victoria and the Indian ocean. According to Adholla, Mkangi and Mbindyo (2008), Kenya is an extremely fertile country, which stretches from the sea level in the eastern part to the snow covered mountains to the north. Mountains that can be found in Kenya include Mt. Kenya, Mt. Elgon and Mt. Kilimanjaro, which also borders Tanzania. Additionally its greatest feature includes the Great Rift Valley, found on the central and western part of the country. Also, there are a number of lakes and rivers found in Kenya, which include Lake Turkana, Lake Nakuru, Lake Naivasha, and Lake Bogoria among others while rivers include River Nzoia, Gori, Ewaso Ngiro, and Yala among others, which form part of Kenya’s Geography. Economically, Kenya does not perform quite well, but it is the largest economy in East Africa. The economy, based on the market with a few infrastructure enterprises owned by the state, also maintains an external liberal trade system. Adholla, Mkangi and Mbindyo (2008) state that 70% of people in Kenya is employed in the agricultural sector in which half of the sector focuses on subsistence farming. The growth rate of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Kenya has decreased over the last decade from 6.5% every year to 4% every year since independent and then to only 1.5% per year during the 1990s. Politically, Kenya has always been considered a stable country despite all the changes in its political system and conflicts in the neighboring countries. According to Adholla, Mkangi and Mbindyo (2008), tourism is the second largest export earner in Kenya after agriculture, which forms a crucial foundation for its economy. A unique tourism features in Kenya include wildlife and beaches, which have enabled it to out space all its neighbors in East Africa due to excellent planning and leadership. In addition, solid infrastructure and devotion to conservation of wildlife has driven Kenya to the forefront of the regional tourism industry. In Kenya, tourism dates back in the pre-independence time i.e. as early as 1930s, when explorers from abroad started visiting Kenya. The explorers and visitors mainly visited Kenya for solitude, as well as big-game hunting expeditions, which the Swahili people started referring to as safaris. Some of the early visitors included Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Earnest Hemingway, and Theodore Roosevelt among other celebrities. About 10% of Kenya has been set aside for wildlife conservation and biodiversity. Since most visitors to the country are mainly interested in seeing animals especially the big five (rhino, elephant, lion, buffalo and leopard), game viewing is a popular practice. Also, there are other small and unique animals present in the country, which attract tourist too. Moreover, there has been a remarkable rise in the number of tourist since the beginning of tourism in Kenya. For instance, in 2003, Kenya received over one million tourists, which lead to rise in bed capacity, in classified hotels to over 73,000. Tourism in Kenya has employed over 219,000 people, which is approximately 11% of the total workforce in the country. Currently, Kenya is still in a state of growth i.e.it is still a developing country. However, there are many factors that are inhibiting economic development; thus, contributing to poverty. Kenya’s GDP in 2009 was 29.5 billion with a growth rate of 2.6% per year. Nevertheless, according to (Institute for Development Studies, 2008), about 20% of Kenyans live below the poverty line, and lives on less than a $ 1.25 a day. Its key natural resources include soda ash, wildlife, and agriculture, which exports tea, coffee, wheat and corn among others. In 2009, agriculture in Kenya represented 25% of GDP. It has highly diverse capabilities, portrayed when the country was rated above average with 747 products with a relative, comparative advantage. The financial and political stability of Kenya has been tested through several economic bursts and booms that are similar to other economies in the world. For instance, Kenya encountered a rapid increase in growth rate of 6.6% between 1964 and 1973, due to increase in oil prices and prices of other commodities. However, despite the high GDP growth rates, increase in agricultural poverty, and decline in poverty in rural areas, the economic inequality remained high in the country. In 1994, Kenya went through a period of economic stagnation, which contributed to its economic crisis. Thus, between 1991 and 1993, the Kenyan government was highly pressured by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to conform to the Bretton Woods Project. For this reason, the government implemented a program, which involved key sectors such as education, health, and agriculture that included economic liberalization and market oriented reforms. The aim of the government was to downsize the public sector, as well as emphasize on the significance of privatization. However, after the 2007 election that resulted in violence, Kenya encountered many economic hardships such as rise in reduction, in the number of investors, and unemployment, which lead to rise in poverty, since about 300,000 people were displaced from their homes and over 1,000 people died. Kenya has a vision 2030 strategy whose aim is to develop Kenya into a globally competitive, modern, middle class country that will offer high quality of life to all its citizens by the year 2030. The goal is to solve the economic crisis that Kenya has been experiencing since elections in December 2007 by implementing certain policy measures in all economic sectors. These goals include the creation of more employment opportunities, reduction of poverty, improvement income distribution, and reduction of gender inequalities among others (Adholla, Mkangi and Mbindyo, 2008). The Kenyan Ministry of Tourism has developed a strategic plan for the year 2008/2009 and 2012/2013. This plan takes into account the commitment of the ministry to achieve the goals of the tourism sector as stated in the Medium Term Plan, as well as the Vision 2030. These objectives include an increase of international visitors from 1.8 million to 3 million from 2007 to 2012 respectively; to increase the average spending per tourist from 40,000 in 2006 to 70,000 in 2012, and to triple the annual national earnings from 65.5 billion shillings in 2007 to 200 billion shillings by 2012. The plan outlines the key strategic objectives to be implemented within the given period and gives implementation strategies, plans, financial requirements, as well as monitoring and evaluation. Moreover, there are several objectives and strategies needed to represent the tourism sector goals. They include formulation and implementation of an appropriate policy and legal framework for development of the tourism sector, development of new products and diversify source markets, reduction of tourism conflict, and enhancing tourism information management and research capacity, among others. According to Adholla, Mkangi and Mbindyo (2008), the idea of using tourism as a tool to reduce poverty has been discovered recently. For the first time, poverty issues were discussed in relation to tourism development, in 1999. However, up to now, tourism has not yet been considered seriously in most of poverty eradication strategies of international aid and development agencies. In Kenya, poverty, HIV/AIDS and famine are the key national disasters, but poverty eradication has become the most compelling challenge. In tourist destinations, local government, hoteliers, tour operators, and local communities need to be encouraged in order to take control of their destination within domestic and international tourism market. Thus, if tourism is strongly linked to the local economy, then there will be high chances of poverty eradication. The distribution of employment such as gender distribution and access to local entrepreneurs from both the informal and formal sectors to the tourism market is significant in eradication of poverty, in Kenya. Moreover, tourism promotes the development of infrastructure such as roads, treated piped water, telephones, waste disposal and sewage treatment and recycling. These infrastructural benefits help the local communities; thus, benefit the poor and contribute to poverty elimination. Tourism has enabled Kenya to gain the highly needed foreign exchange through the visitors who visit Kenya every year. Moreover, the industry has created a lot of jobs and employed over 140,000 people directly and indirectly in the various tourist attraction sites on which about 85,000 people depend on them for their livelihood. The government has developed a strategy on how to maximize the tourism benefits for the poor, and help to improve their lives, as well as benefit the national revenues from tourism. Some of these mechanisms include employment of the poor in tourism enterprises such as supply of goods and services to the tourism enterprises, promotion of direct sales of goods and services to tourists by the poor, and taxation of tourism income and proceeds to be used to benefit the poor among others. Adholla, Mkangi and Mbindyo (2008) state that tourism jobs are the best in giving self-esteem to the poor. He states that tourism can be an excellent tool to eliminating poverty, but the entry barriers are not always low. For instance, the establishment costs can be high for some businesses and seasonality may be a problem with regards to returns from tourism, but can help tourism be lifted along with other livelihood activities. Good contacts between the private sector enterprises and local communities are quite significant. The local communities must participate and make their own decisions, and even learn from their own mistakes instead of being dependent on institutions. In conclusion, tourism has contributed to eradication of poverty in Kenya. It has contributed 2.6% GDP, about $3.2 million has currently been collected from tourism and over 153,000 people have been employed. The main goal for Kenya is to achieve a broad-based and sustainable increase in the standards of living for all Kenyans. However, poverty has numerous exhibitions such as low and unreliable income, disempowerment, low levels of education and literacy, poor health, insecurity and poor access to justice and isolation from the conventional socio-economic development (Adholla, Mkangi and Mbindyo, 2008). Therefore, it is essential to devise multidimensional policies and interventions, which will provide a permanent solution. Also, the poor must be given a means to help themselves through income earning opportunities through tourism, the provision of affordable, easy access to various means of production, basic services, as well as protection by the law. This can only be achieved through a thoughtful and long-term policy, which will increase equity of opportunity and ensure that all citizens can participate fully in the socio-economic development of Kenya. Bibliography Adholla, S., Mkangi, K., and Mbindyo, J. 2008. Study of tourism in Kenya: with emphasis on the attitudes of residents of the Kenya coast. Nairobi: Institute for Development Studies, University of Nairobi press. Read More