Wow! It just gets better and better! I am catching up on news from the last week or so and the latest shocker is that the budget also made tourism travel in Kenya taxable to 16% as per value added tax (VAT). Previously, this was not the case. However, at a time that Kenya’s tourism needs all the concessions it can get from the Government to recover from the post-election violence, they get additional taxes. For me, this is counter-intuitive and really suicidal for Kenya’s tourism industry. The tax affects all forms of travel including road and air in the country so…figures we can expect some resistance from tourists already wary of coming to Kenya. I guess we’re now really learning the true cost of what happened post-election, including a very large bill to run a bloated Government for the next four and a half years. Did I also mention that fuel is well on its way past Kes. 100.00 per liter and that food prices are spiraling out of control too? Sounds like a pretty potent and poisonous cocktail for the Kenyan tourism industry going forward. Anyway, lets be optimistic and hope some miracles happen since the budget also allocated around Kes. 1.5 billion to the Ministry of Tourism to help market Kenya aggressively globally in the coming year. I hope they use lots of this on internet marketing with the Kenya Tourist Board building a fabulous gung ho, no holding back, world-class web site!