Nearly a million people visit Kenya each year. How can Kenyans capitalise on the country’s rich cultural heritage and stunning nature while also maintaining it?
Community Based Tourism (CBT) allows Kenya to position their local communities as centres of economic development and social wellbeing.
Through a SWITCH Africa Green Initiative, The CSCP is leading a partnership to help enable green growth in Kenya through CBT. The premise of the SUS-TOUR project is that by Training the Trainers, we empower and enable local communities to develop and implement sustainable business solutions that work for them.
The first trainings kicked off in June of this year at the Kenya Environment Management Institute (KEMI) in Nairobi. The objective was to help participants understand the Sustainable Business Framework and success factors of Community Based Tourism. Over 50 lecturers and representatives from communities and tour operators attended these Train the Trainers sessions.
They are now responsible for holding their own training sessions within their local communities. Trainings will focus on enhancing business and marketing skills, empowering participants to work together towards poverty alleviation; bringing together experienced tour operators and communities to work together in the review, improvement and/or development of high-quality CBT products to take to market; and providing first-hand information of how existing policy tools and frameworks are supporting and presenting the opportunities for developing new ones.
The Train the Trainers sessions were delivered by the CSCP in collaboration with our local partners Ecotourism Kenya and the Federation of Community Tourism Organisations. SWITCH Africa Green is funded by the European Union and supported by UNEP, UNDP, and UNOPS.
