According to the Ministry of Tourism, the number of tourists visiting the country has increased tremendously over the last five months.

The increase is attributed to the aggressive campaign to help the sector recover from the effects of the Covid-19 lockdown.

Tourism Cabinet Secretary (CS), Peninah Malonza, said the number grew from 870,000 in October 2022 to 1,487,000 in March 2023.

Further, she noted that the figure was expected to triple over the next two years.

“My work is to bring numbers and within the five months I have been in office we have been able to boost the numbers by 600, 000,” she said.

The CS stated that the Ministry expects to increase the numbers to 5.5 million by 2025 using a variety of actions to support sector earnings.

The CS claimed that to meet the goal, the government has implemented a complex plan to diversify nationwide tourism offerings to attract domestic and foreign tourists.

Speaking Friday during the Fish Fiesta 2023 festival's official inauguration in Kisumu, Malonza said the Ministry was updating the Tourism Policy to create additional opportunities for the sector to expand.

The government was also looking into adventure, culinary, gastronomic, cultural, educational, medical, conference, agro-, and leisure tourism potential.

Plans to create distinctive products in the new regions were being developed simultaneously in collaboration with the Council of Governors (COG) to increase tourism throughout the nation.

“We are in talks with the Council of Governors over this and the Kenya Tourism Board (KTB), will pick this up and help the county governments, to market these products,” she said

She added that this was urgent to ensure that tourism benefits are spread across the country to boost revenue and create job opportunities for the youth.