The focus is on ecotourism and sustainable tourism, best practices, policy development and tourism planning and management. We also undertake social evaluation of programmes and review EIAs.
The SUS-TOUR Project – a Switch Africa Green Project (July 2015 – December 2017)
SUS-TOUR is a 30-month project that is being implemented jointly by the three partners since 2015. It is funded by the European Union through the framework of projects of Switch Africa Green. The overall objective of SUS-TOUR is to contribute to the sustainable development of tourism in Kenya through promoting customer-oriented innovation and marketing of CBTs to foster improvement in rural livelihoods and conservation of culture and the natural environment.
The major beneficiaries of the project are Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). The MSMEs includes tour operators and community-based tourism organizations in Kenya. The project aims at developing tools that would assist the MSMEs in marketing and developing their CBT products.
Two universities (Moi University and Masai Mara University) are key players in the project as training sessions were conducted in collaboration with their institutions. Moreover, they are headquarters of the regional training branches.
The project is involving the county administration, public tourism organizations and other Civil Society Organizations (CSOs).
The specific objectives of SUS-TOUR project are to:
- Transfer the knowledge of good practice to guide CBT development in Kenya
- Capacitate and support entrepreneurs and communities to develop customer-oriented innovation and effective partnership in CBT
- Enhance sustainability in capacity building for CBT development
- Enhance coordinated marketing of CBT
- Improve enabling policy framework to guide CBT at a larger scale.
The project has undertaken following activities to achieve its objectives:
- The Multi Stakeholder Project Board has been established
- Training of trainers was conducted in Nairobi and Eldoret in June 2016. 19 CBTOs, 12 TOs and 57 trainers (lecturers and county government officials participated in the trainings
- The Collaborative Innovation Workshop (CIW) was conducted in February 2017.
- Tools for sustainable CBTEs have been developed including; a training workbook, a Marketing Guideline and CBTE checklist
- The project’s communication strategy has been implemented. This has included the design of the project’s logo, website, Twitter, Facebook and dissemination materials such as stickers and flyers
- Field visits to CBTOs have been conducted to assess how they are implementing the CBT support package
The project is in the process of completing the following activities
- Developing a CBT Guidebook including a code of conduct for tourists
- Establishing a regional training centre
- Establishing a Go-Marketing subcommittee
- Drafting policy recommendations on roadmap to sustainable CBT development
