Tourism Trust Fund Chief Executive Dr Dan Kagagi said Kenya should legalise electronic payment to make E-tourism a reality.
"It is difficult to make online payments in Kenya and we have to go overseas for the facilities," he said.
Online payments in the country are virtually illegal. Kenya Airways is the only company that has successfully embraced the use of the system in conjunction with South African Banks.
Local banks have shied away due to threats of online fraud.
TTF is lobbying for necessary amendments on the Kenya Information, Communications and Technology (ICT) Bill 2008 to facilitate online payments, said Kagagi.
This will make it easy for stakeholders to market the country’s tourism sector through the Internet, which is quickly becoming the next frontier in bookings.
Kagagi observed that the global e-travel market has developed significantly over the past 10 years and Kenya cannot be left behind.
In 2006, online sales accounted for 19.5 per cent of the global retail travel sector. In the UK, online bookings increased from seven per cent in 2002 to 35 per cent in 2006.
Today, more than 50 million consumers planning to travel undertake destination research online every month, something that has pushed annual online tourism revenue close to $100 billion.
Online marketing
And while international destination marketing organisations (DMOs) use about 21 per cent of their marketing budgets in online marketing, Africa spends a mere one per cent.
"We need to embrace the web in a big way as it is fast becoming the predominant means of booking and selling travel," noted Kagagi while launching a series of E-tourism seminars.
He added that E-tourism could offer easy and quick solutions to the tourism sector, which is currently recovering from the effects of post election violence.
The sector is expected to earn Sh8 billion in the first quarter of this year compared to Sh17 billion last year.
Although the Government has drafted an ICT Bill, its enactment has been shrouded in controversies.
Another legislation, the Electronic Transactions Bill is being prepared by the E-Government Secretariat at the Office of the President.
If enacted into law, the Bill will facilitate and promote the use of electronic transactions in Kenya by creating legal certainty and public trust around transactions that are conducted with various forms of ICTs.
The seminars, slated to take place next month, will focus on how to manage information during crisis periods.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): John Njiraini
Quelle/Source: The Standard, 16.05.2008
