Loaded the New York Times Web site today and I couldn't help but notice the American Express advertisement on the right of the main page.
"One destination every day. Prices dropping every 20 minutes," says the ad. Its examples: Tuscany, Hawaii and ... Tanzania.
Hmmm....
I know it's hard for reporters to find tourists in Kenya at the moment, but this is getting ridiculous. Debbie Shillito (or Shillitto, depending on whom you ask) gets a rare Wire Trifecta with an appearance in AFP after having been quoted by AP and Reuters. And wait! Shillito is through to the bonus round with this mention in the Ottawa Citizen and this one in the Voice of America!
(For the non-journos out there, what happened was that the Kenya Tourist Board arranged a junket trip for reporters to the Samburu Game Reserve and get an inaccurate accurate sense of how Kenya's crisis has affected the tourism industry. Apparently Debbie was the only person there.)
Actually, I shouldn't be so flip. One of the most onerous tasks reporters face is trying to find a Real Person for their stories, particularly when a deadline looms. An affable, talkative Real Person such as Debbie is manna from heaven.
I interviewed the director of the Kenya Tourist Board yesterday. He showed me a graph with the number of arrivals each month for the last 10 years, and confirms that arrivals after Kenya's chaos are lower than they've ever been in that time, even during times of crisis in the past. Tens of thousands of jobs are being lost.
Considering the huge role tourism plays in the economy, this is a problem. There were a couple of encouraging signs, though: For one, they've been here before. Tourists vanished after the 1998 embassy bombing and the 2002 attack on a hotel in Mombasa. The European Union and the government injected tens of millions of dollars into the industry and it recovered.
Second, as soon as the political situation calms down, the country's hotels have agreed to offer massive deals to lure people back (right now, they're charging regular prices even though they're all empty). Kenya is also going to "incentivize" travel writers (his words) to come and write positive stories.
The bigger point to me is just how poorly both Raila Odinga and Mwai Kibaki have handled this crisis. The extent of the economic disaster accompanying this political crisis would be mitigated so much if the two sides just sat down and talked with each other. We are nearly a month gone, and still both sides would rather whip up anger and trade stupid accusations than actually negotiate.
A good post on this issue by White African is here.
