Government lifts ban on meetings held in private hotels
The government has temporarily lifted the ban on meetings being held in private hotels.
Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yatani, on Thursday, said this is one of the government’s efforts to help resuscitate the ailing tourism sector.
Dr Yatani said that the hospitality industry is one of the hard-hit sectors in the country due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Tourism is one of the hard-hit sectors in the economy. This is reflected by the massive cancellation of hotel bookings. The resulting effect has been an increased job and income losses,” Dr Yatani said.
“In this regard Mr Speaker to support this critical sector the government has initiated a number of urgent measures including a temporary lifting of the ban to hold meetings in private hotels by government agencies.”
Other measures taken by the government include the waiver of landing and parking fees at the airports to facilitate the movement of cargo in and out of Kenya.
“Going forward the government will scale up the tourism efforts to boost the tourism sector by promoting aggressive post Covid-19 tourism marketing and providing support for hotel refurbishment through soft loans to be channelled through the tourism finance corporation,” Dr Yatani stated.
The cessation of movement and ban on local and international flights has had an adverse impact on the tourism sector resulting in a number of them closing down operations and firing employees.