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How to use data analytics to grow tourism

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Kenya Tourism Board says its target is to hit 4.5 million bed nights by June, up from an estimated 3.9 million in 2018. FILE PHOTO | NMG

According to the tourism sector performance 2018 report released by Tourism secretary Najib Balala, the country is on an upward trajectory. Notable growth was recorded in tourism receipts, which grew by Sh8 billion to Sh157 billion in 10 years.

Within the same period, tourist arrivals at Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport increased from 771,497 to 1,342,513. Interestingly, arrivals at the Moi International Airport in Mombasa dropped from 276,316 to 118,113. Visitor arrivals for 2018 grew to 2,025,206 with Africa as the main source market, accounting for 40 per cent followed by Europe at 30.22 per cent.

International visitors experienced a growth of 37.33 per cent while domestic bed nights grew by nine per cent. This exemplary performance was attributed to revitalised marketing activities and Kenya’s improved ranking in the World Bank’s ease of doing business report. There is also improved hotels infrastructure, with the Knight and Frank 2018 report ranking Kenya third in the continent after Lagos and Abuja in the Hotels Pipeline report.

In the quest to drive tourism numbers upwards, the Kenya Tourism Board (KTB) said their target is to hit 4.5 million bed nights by June, up from an estimated 3.9 million in 2018.

KTB chief executive Betty Radier said recently that they have established a business development unit, which is expected to conclude the exercise of enumerating and registering the sites across the country ahead of a June deadline. This move is welcome and to help KTB meet its objective, they ought to leverage on technology. One such technology is Big Data Analytics and here is why.

Tourists can now access different sources of information, and they can generate their own content and share their views and experiences. Tourism content shared through social media has become an influential information source, which impacts tourism in terms of both reputation and performance. For instance, according to a report by Airbnb, a digital room booking platform that leverages on shared economy philosophy like Uber, it has seen 3.5 million guests arrive at listings across Africa since inception.

In Kenya, guest arrivals on Airbnb grew by 68 percent last year and this is set to grow as the app becomes even popular amongst local real estate owners. Airbnb recently launched an expeditions service that allows users the option to book “immersive” travel experiences, which includes city tours, peer reviews and recommendations, as well as meet with locals.

The new feature, titled Trips, aims to bring together unique local travel experiences, from forest trail in your local village to marathon running in the highlands, to boat rides in your local river using the Airbnb app.

The tours and experiences, which can entail multi-day activities or one-off events such as concerts, are all hosted by locals are set to disrupt the hospitality ecosystem going by what we have experienced with crowd-sourced platform Uber.

TIMOTHY ORIEDO, Data scientist, Predictive Analytics Lab.