The Tourism Trust Fund, (TTF) is hosting Kenya’s second E-Tourism Conference on the 6th-7th July 2007. This follows last years highly successful E-Tourism conference in Nairobi , which was the first of it’s kind in Africa- raising awareness among the Tourism, Communication and Finance sectors of the great opportunities now available through online tourism, and the risk of Kenya’s tourism sector falling into a digital divide between the developing and developed world.

The June conference at the Mombasa Serena, sponsored by Safaricom, Kenya Airways and Africa Online will spread the same message to stakeholders at the Coast, while this extended two day event will also feature new presentations from a range of local and international speakers on new technologies, opportunities and guidance in moving towards genuine E-Tourism.

Dr Dan Kagagi, the TTF CEO says “Last years event served as a real wake up call to the industry, and made many people aware of the risk of not investing in technology and moving into the global online market. The web is now the leading source of information for travellers and is fast becoming the predominant means of booking and selling travel. While we are all pleased at our recent tourism boom- very little of it has come from the online market, and if we are to move ahead in a sustainable way, we need to move in the right direction. This second conference is about taking that direction”.

The event will look beyond the borders of Kenya and special regional session is planned with East African representatives to discuss ways of working together online to attract traffic to single online destination.

There will be a presentation from NEPAD on the 2010 initiative, a new tourism portal for Africa. A new Awards scheme for ICT Achievement in East Africa will also be launched at the conference.

The conference will also continue TTF’s mission to provide direct support and assistance to local stakeholders, with practical sessions on web development, online financial management and security systems for avoiding fraud and securing your business online.

The guest of honor will be the Minister for Tourism, the Hon. Morris Dzoro.

“A key word in today’s ICT world is “convergence”- finding ways to coordinate and streamline businesses and systems by creating partnerships through technology. The e tourism conference will be very much about partnerships, between tourism stakeholders, between the public and private sectors, between East African destinations, between Africa and the global market.” added Dr Kagagi.

For complete information, contacts and programme click here