"African Pro-poor Tourism Development Centre (APTDC) is a duly registered charitable organization under Certificate Number OP.218/051/2003/0369/3010 pursuant to and in accordance with section 10 of the Non-Governmental Organizations Coordination Act of Kenya. The organization seeks to promote the utilization of tourism as a strategic tool to alleviate poverty. The centre was the first of its kind in the East African Travel & Tourism Industry and until it was founded, tourism was not being used as strategic tools towards addressing the various social problems such as unemployment, poverty and gender inequality. We at APTDC are guided by this slogan ""Give the local community a fish and you feed the for today, teach the to fish and you feed them for ever""
 
Tourism is the world largest growing industry with no signs of slowing down in the twenty- first century. The industry is helping the developing nations to earn the badly needed foreign exchange of which Kenya is not an exception. The job creation in the Travel and Tourism is growing one-and-half times faster than any other sector. The travel and tourism industry is labour intensive and it employs about 200 million people worldwide. In Kenya it employs about 500,000 people both directly and indirectly, it's also estimated that about 850,000 dependants relay on these employee for their livelihood.
 
We at APTDC belief that tourism can play a significant part in promoting sustainable local development and generating benefits for the poor. We are also convinced that the power of tourism- one of the most dynamic economic activities of our time- can be more effectively harnessed to address the problems of poverty more directly. The benefits of tourism should be widely spread in society and the poor should benefit from tourism development. Tourism has emerged in this decade as a central pillar of the services economy, and it can uniquely help society respond to global challenges, if its growth is managed wisely, with an emphasis on ethics, poverty alleviation, the particular interests of developing states and sustainable development. The dynamic past and projected growth of the tourism sector, its broad direct and indirect impact across all economies - particularly those of developing states make it particularly well suited as a development tool.
 
Tourism is particularly potent in economic terms in respect of: job creation, investment attraction, foreign exchange earnings, poverty alleviation and in social terms in respect of: youth employment, community enrichment, gender equality and cultural preservation.