Tourism in Kenya has been struggling for a while thanks to all manner of security incidents and negative publicity. However, in light of all of this, there is a silver lining of sorts for the domestic tourism sector. In particular, we have never seen rates for holidays being as affordable as they are at the moment and this has been the case for the last few years. Indeed, I have had the privilege of working with a number of major players in Kenya’s tourism industry and my conclusion is that its a mixed bag of sorts?

What seems to be the case is that whilst Kenya seems to have taken a big hit with lots of ‘traditional’ and International tourism source markets like the UK, Germany and North America, the domestic tourism sector is thriving. Indeed, some hospitality businesses can confidently say that they no longer rely solely on International tourists as their main source of revenues. This is a good thing but obviously, as things stand, the majority of tourism businesses are still struggling.

As I see it, one of the major challenges for domestic tourism in Kenya is that Kenyans do not know what is out there beyond what could be considered the ‘beaten track’ in terms of local holiday destinations and offerings. Kenya as a tourism destination is ridiculously endowed with all manner of holiday destinations – from the Indian Ocean all the way to the slopes of Mount Kenya and further afield to the shores of Lake Turkana.

One could literally and proverbially take over a year to see all that Kenya has to offer if they had the time and money. I am often amazed every time I take a break with my family or travel on work the diversity of what we have! There is something for every budget and every radically new holiday experience. However, the major caveat to holiday discovery in Kenya is that the majority of us do not know where to start when it comes to planning our holidays and word of mouth seems to reign supreme? However, there is a better way!

Enter TravelDiscoverKenya.com. This is a website that was relaunched last week by Yellow Pages Kenya. Although the website had been operational for a number of years, the team invested lots of time and money to relaunch the same so that it could better serve Kenya’s domestic tourism market.

One of the major aspects of the newly relaunched TravelDiscoverKenya.com is that it has been rebuilt for a mobile-first user experience through a mobile responsive design.This makes loads of sense as its estimated that Kenya has over 10 million smartphone users as of this writing so in order to reach this target market a mobile responsive website is essential. In addition, the overall user experience of the TravelDiscoverKenya.com website has also been completely re-done so that it is user friendly and one is able to find their way around quite easily.

The look and feel has also been completely re-done so as to achieve a visually compelling design that brings various holiday destinations to the fore. Lastly, the content in the new TravelDiscoverKenya.com website has been completely rewritten to make the information easier to understand and entice Kenyan holidaymakers to make their reservations or bookings online.

From a navigational standpoint, the TravelDiscoverKenya.com website has been broken out into the main key sections of city guides, destinations, circuits, a trip planner and things to do. This is a somewhat typical structure as seen on many travel-oriented websites so this makes the website intuitive for the average user based on current best practices.

Yellow Pages Kenya have also partnered with TripAdvisor so that visitors to TravelDiscoverKenya.com will be able to give feedback and rate their experiences at any of the featured destinations in Kenya. This is a pretty important aspect of the enhanced website as the majority of travel decisions these days start online and TripAdvisor is a major factor behind the choices tourists make.

One can also take a really deep drive into the various holiday offerings that are available from every corner of Kenya in one digital buffet! I am actually impressed with the amount of effort and attention to detail that has gone into making TravelDiscoverKenya.com a truly locally oriented and comprehensive tourism resource that will undoubtedly help many of us to plan our holidays. Don’t take my word for it – check it out at TravelDiscoverKenya.com!