Contestants for the Miss Tourism for Counties, 2016 at the CoG offices

Background (Role of the committee)

The Tourism and Wildlife Committee was constituted to handle all the matters relating to Tourism and Wildlife Management, tourism being a significant sector and a driver of Kenya’s economic development as an Economic Pillar of Vision 2030, therefore the committee has the responsibility of formulating the intergovernmental framework of engagements with the National Government through the Intergovernmental working groups, identifying the key issues in tourism, providing the legislative and administrative actions and consolidating the best practices from Counties in collaboration with the stakeholders.

Legal Framework

The primary source of legislation for the committee's activities is the Constitution of Kenya 2010. The other key sources of legislation include:

• Tourism Act (2011)
• The National Wildlife Conservation and Management Act, (2013)
• Tourism Regulatory Act (2014)

Approach to undertaking Committee’s business

The committee functions through: -
1.    The Tourism Sectoral Meetings by the Committees.
2.    Constant Inter-governmental engagements on Tourism and Wildlife Issues.
3.    Collective consultation on matters of interest in Tourism and Wildlife.
4.    Creates a platform to share on the best practices in the Tourism Industry.

Status Briefs (Current agendas/issued being addressed by the committee)

• The Committee is currently reviewing the National Laws on Tourism and aligning them with the County so as to ensure the Spirit of the Constitution is followed to the later.
• Building CoGs capacity to guide, review or formulate equitable evidence-based tourism policies, legal and regulatory frameworks.
• Availing information on tourism prospects that are in counties for the relevant stakeholders.
  Through the annual Miss County Tourism competition, Beauty pageants at this event exhibit the tourism potentials in our diverse counties,

Opportunities that the Committee Offers

The committee offers a platform to improve the tourism products across the Counties, this involves tax incentives as well as improvement of processes such as licensing and zoning that are essential for doing tourism businesses. In addition, the Committee is reaching out to potential investors directly to assist Counties to undertake the relevant measures so as to help Champion for the conservation of tourism and wildlife Issues.

Impact/Breakthroughs/Key Achievements

• Most Counties are striving to enact County Laws with the guidance from CoG in collaboration with Kenya Law Reform, (County Tourism Bill)
• The Council of Governors has provided the platform for Counties to share their information which has formed the basis of the faster adoption of the best practices in tourism and wildlife sector.

Resources

The committee develops and maintains a variety of research, technical and advisory resources on tourism and wildlife Management done through the weekly Reports, quarterly reports and the annual reports.