TikTok tourists? Kenya moves online to market herself and woo new audiences

While admitting that they had not embraced the online space to market its white pristine beaches and wildlife, Kenya Tourism Board CEO Betty Radier said that mindset has shifted.

“One of the things that we identified during the pandemic, was the use of technology, we had not embraced it as much as we wanted to and technology for us has played a huge role,” she said.

“We started doing livestreams to beam what it is that our destinations had to offer from the Tsavo to the Mara where we run a livestream over 65 days.”

While the world was grounded and everyone was holed at home with the pandemic raging, KTB decided to livestream the Wildebeest migration and that proved to be a genius move.

“We partnered with partners like TikTok and last year, during the Wildebeest migration, we had a livestream that had over 100 million viewers in one incident watching the migration,” she said.

It was not just TikTok, Kenya has since partnered with major online platforms like Weibo in China, Trip Advisor and Expedia from Europe to brag about its offerings.

“What that does, we meet a latent audience of people who are already searching and you plug in your brand there and people are able to consider that Magical Kenya has something new to tell us about,” she said.

At the same time, Ms Radier said that Kenya is also pivoting from just being about wildlife and beaches and moving into other areas like adventure, safari rally, homestays and other offerings.

“We have increased the number of offerings we advertise to the world because we have a lot more to offer and we are hopeful that we will see our numbers increase as we target an even wider audience,” she said.

She was speaking in Dubai where Kenya is one of more than 150 countries that are taking part in the months-long Dubai Expo 2020.

Kenya is selling more than just wildlife, it is showing off its budding technology field led by M-Pesa and several startups that have been recognised globally and attracted funding from the Silicon Valley and other countries.

Ms Radier says the Expo has been a success having signed deals with multiple companies and pitched to areas that have not been key markets.