Mohammed Hersi . A hotelier passionate about Tourism & Governance in Africa

#WhyIloveKenya >>>I will like to share a piece on Power of Diplomacy and my interaction with CS Foreign affairs & International Trade Amb (Dr) Amina  Mohamed.
In 2014 at the height of travel advisories , as tourism players at the coast we got quite frustrated but we never gave up. We explored all avenues to get the advisories to be reviewed as days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months.
I followed her on Twitter and before long she followed back . I tried my luck & sent her a DM and I was pleasantly surprised when she responded. I told her that as tourism players we would like to go and see her , to share with her the impact of the travels advisories and also update her on tourism status esp on the Kenya coast . Believe It or not an appointment was secured via Twitter .
Within 3 days we were at her office as agreed with 3 of my colleagues . She was gracious enough to give us quality time , she listened very keenly and took a lot of notes while at the same asked many questions . We brought to her attention the sorry state of tourism at that time. She was truly & genuinely sympathetic to our plight. She then asked us one question , ” What do you want me to do for you ”

We politely asked her if she could arrange for us to meet the Ambassadors from the key source markets . We told her as tourism players we would like to engage them and see what we need to do to get them to review the non essential travel advisories . She even asked us to list the Ambassadors we wanted to meet. Wow , had to pinch myself, for real.

Believe it or not , we met on a Wednesday she made only one call and on the spot she told us , a breakfast meeting has been set up on Friday.

In less than 48 hours she helped us meet 12 Ambassadors and we managed to share our thoughts and we also heard their concerns . A new chapter was opened and we continued comparing notes with them.

Finally the advisories were lifted ( of course many others also played their role ) as they say the rest is history , we are now busy rebuilding the state of tourism at the Kenya coast. We never made our lobbying at that time public but today I can share it.

This is what I call true power of diplomacy. She did all this at the time when several quarters & arm chair experts were claiming that we were not in good terms with some of these countries in the west . If only they took time to engage diplomat par excellence Amb Amina Mohamed they would have had a different view. You cannot get all these Ambassadors to meet just tourism players in under 48 hours if relationship was that frosty

Folks our international affairs are certainly in good hands. All the good things happening to us in the international arena as a country is certainly the midas touch of Amb Mohamed and of course  anchored on great foreign policy. . She has brought optimism and diplomacy of highest degree that any nation would love to have .

Good people join me today to celebrate and thank CS Amb (Dr.) Amina Mohamed for her tireless effort to position Kenya in good light.

God Bless you Ambassador and God bless Kenya .