Tourism has often been presented as a strategy for supporting local communities in developing countries to address income poverty. However, local community entrepreneurs, which are mainly Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) are often under resourced, and ill equipped to take advantage of tourism development opportunities.
STTA has worked with the Airbnb under the Africa Airbnb Academy to co-create a curriculum to support small and very small enterprises to enter the tourism value chain through online presence. The program focuses on local homeowners with capacity to host visitors and local experience providers, both in established and emerging destinations. This group often misses out on capacity building opportunities as they are not organized in structures that are attractive to traditional tourism governance structures.
So far training bootcamps have been held in Nairobi, Kilifi, Kisumu and Mombasa, reaching more than 150 MSMEs with training on BDS and market access. Many have listed on Airbnb platform and are earning from tourism
