East Africa Tourism Platform (EATP), an umbrella platform for tourism trade association in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi, is hoping to bring down the cost of tourism product in the region and position it competitively to domestic and international travellers, KBC reported.

According to the report, EATP Regional Co-ordinator, Carmen Nibigira, revealed that the association would be conducting a survey. “The exercise will involve studying each partner state and region’s price competitiveness with regard to taxes, levies and charges so as to inform regional and national policy reforms,” she was quoted as saying.

A recent study found that hotels in Nairobi were among the most expensive in the region.

Nibigira told Tourism Update the survey would serve as an audit of the pricing in the region and help establish where there are differences in terms of rates so that it has an understanding of the landscape.

“The objective for us is to have information that can equip our members, tourism boards and associations and our partners to have something that will guide the discussions that we have in the future when we lobby for changes in East Africa.”

According to Nibigira, the platform is hoping to lobby airports and airlines to reduce airfares. It will also lobby low-cost airlines to serve the region.

The survey will be conducted in source markets and in partnership with tourism boards and associations and is expected to be completed before the end of the year. Nibigira said some of the recommendations and findings would then be used to guide decisions and policies for 2016.