Skills gap assessment in tourism sector that are key to promoting inclusive decent employment and productive livelihood in Nakuru, Narok and Kajiado counties.

The report examines skills gaps and mismatches across the tourism economies of Nakuru, Narok and Kajiado counties, covering hospitality services and tour operations — from front office, housekeeping and food production to guiding, eco-lodge operations, event and conference services and cultural enterprise.

Drawing on employer surveys, key informant interviews, focus group discussions, institutional engagement and workplace observations, it identifies skills shortages, surpluses, outdated practices and emerging requirements.

The assessment finds critical gaps in culinary specialization, multilingual guiding, event and conference management, digital tourism marketing and green technologies. It also points to a weak connection between training provision and industry needs, including short, self-sourced and weakly supervised industrial attachments, and curricula that stop at basic computer literacy in a market now run through online travel agencies.

Women and young people face additional barriers to reaching higher-value guiding, culinary and managerial roles. The report offers evidence to help strengthen relevant training, improve inclusion and support more productive livelihoods and decent work across the tourism sector — and shows that the binding constraint differs by county