Web portal introduced to promote regional tourism

The East Africa Tourism Platform (EATP) has announced the East Africa Destination web portal as part of its joint regional tourism promotion and COVID-19 recovery efforts. Through the www.visiteastafrica.net portal, tourists can plan and book tourist packages and offers from service providers of the region’s various tourist attractions in Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda.

The East Africa Tourism Platform (EATP) is a regional private sector body for tourism in East Africa, set up with the support of Trade Mark East Africa in 2011 after extensive consultations with tourism stakeholders to facilitate active and focused engagement of the Private Sector in the East African Community (EAC) Regional Integration process.

The portal has a My Trip-Planner function that allows tourists to check for tour packages and operators to provide quotations for selected packages. Tourists can also find information on this portal, and can easily apply for the East Africa Single Tourist Visa.

Created under the stewardship of the countries’ tourism boards, the shared platform was put in place to enable tourists to have access to credible travel information on services to the region and also for travel trade operators to place their multi-country packages promoting the East Africa region as a single tourist destination.

Over 830 regional tour operators and travel agents are already registered on the platform as the region joins efforts to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic. More travel operators are welcome to join the platform at no cost by registering through their respective country tour associations.

Speaking on the platform launch, the EATP Chairperson, Mr Fred Odek, said: “The introduction of the portal will allow regional stakeholders to market to domestic, regional and international visitors directly. We are in discussions with more stakeholders from the other EAC countries to join the platform.”

Mr. Odek also noted that the platform will be enhanced to include an option for tourists to provide online reviews for places visited and an e-learning system for East Africa travel specialists. Anataria Karimba, Director of Business Competitiveness at TradeMark East Africa noted:

“The platform will facilitate tourists from across the world to access information on products, experiences, and destinations in the Eastern Africa region all in one place; enhancing the availability of information in the region and accessibility to the tourism supply chain.”

The vision of creating and promoting a vibrant and diverse single tourism destination is the driving force. The platform works closely with national ministries responsible for tourism, hospitality, wildlife, transport portfolios, the EAC Secretariat, Trade Mark East Africa, East African Business Council and private sector organizations in all the member states to promote intra- and inter-regional tourism.