Tourism is Kenya’s biggest single foreign exchange earner, expected to generate more than Ksh 60 billion (US$ 896 million) by the end of this year. This will mark a growth of about 7 percent from last year. That has been the trend over the past three or so years.

This growth has been generated by a steady rise in numbers of tourists coming into the country. And now, as one way of expanding accommodation facilities, the government is beginning to send signals that it will officially recognise home stays as an alternative to hotel accommodation.

Recently, the Ministry of Tourism announced that it was considering instituting guidelines to encourage and license individuals with extra space within their homes to accommodate tourists. Presently, such guidelines do not exist, and individuals who have previously opened up their homes for tourists have done so without licensing.

The Government now sees potential in home stays as a valid source of income to individuals as well as to the Government itself.

Its move to recognise home stays coincides with plans by a community based tourism network to demonstrate the potential of communities to generate meaningful returns from tourism. Home stays is definitely one of the network’s areas of interest.

The Kenya Community Based Tourism Network (KECOBAT) is set to host a “community based tourism symposium, exhibition, and investment forum” to raise interest in community participation in tourism investments and management within their localities.

The three-day event will be hosted at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre in Nairobi from September 17 to 19, and according to KEBOBAT co-ordinator, Taiko Lemayian, it will be the first attempt in the country to interrogate strategies, policies, laws and practices with a view to making tangible recommendation for actions that will generate meaningful returns to communities in which tourism is most popular in the country.

Encouraging locals to operate little homesteads to accommodate visitors, for example, could be one way of ensuring direct earnings to themselves. Presently, most of the income-generating activities of people living in areas frequented by tourists are appendages of the bigger lodges and hotels, and fail to generate significant returns to the local people. KECOBAT seeks to change that.