Sistra contributor
Phoebe Maina
Social Impact Practitioner & Responsible Tourism Founder
Nairobi, Kenya
Phoebe Maina came to tourism after more than 15 years working across social impact, women’s empowerment and community development.
Through that work, she saw how often tourism could thrive while surrounding communities benefited far less. Steri Tours grew from the question of what travel could look like if more of that value stayed local.
Profile
Her story
Phoebe began Steri Tours as a side project in 2017 while she was still working in the nonprofit sector. By 2020, she had moved into tourism full-time and began developing the company around a simple idea: travel should work better for the people whose places, cultures and knowledge make it possible.
Today, Steri creates journeys across Kenya that combine wildlife and conservation with cultural experiences and community participation. But Phoebe’s work extends beyond the company.
She is also the founder and executive director of Dignified Children International, an organization rooted in her own experience growing up in a village with limited resources. Its work has included annual children’s camps, mentorship and opportunities designed to give young people greater exposure, confidence and access to information. Phoebe has described mentoring some of those children for more than a decade, with former participants later returning as facilitators themselves.
Her work with women in tourism forms another part of that thread. Through the Kenya Association of Women in Tourism, where she currently appears as MICE Coordinator and has held training and mentorship leadership roles, she has been involved in widening participation, mentorship and professional opportunities for women entering the industry.
What connects these parts of Phoebe’s work is less a particular sector than a way of thinking about participation. Whether the context is tourism, youth development or women’s leadership, she keeps returning to questions of who has access, who gets to shape the opportunity and who benefits when something grows.
“Travel should create genuine symbiosis between visitors and the communities they encounter. Not charity. Not spectacle. Real partnership.”
A closer look
A greater stake in the journey
One of the clearest examples of Phoebe’s approach is taking shape in Laikipia.
Steri Tours has been working with Naibunga Upper and Shulmai Community Conservancies alongside the Laikipia Conservancies Association to develop tourism experiences with the communities themselves.
The work goes beyond adding a village visit to an itinerary. Community representatives have been involved in tourism development and capacity building, looking at everything from guiding and cultural experiences to conservation, product development and how tourism income can remain locally meaningful. In June 2026, 20 representatives from the two conservancies took part in a tourism development training organized through the collaboration.
It is the kind of work Phoebe has been moving toward for years: tourism in which local people are not simply the backdrop to someone else’s experience, but active participants in what gets created.
Looking ahead
What she’s building toward
A tourism industry where more women and local communities have the opportunity to shape, lead and benefit from the experiences built around their cultures, landscapes and knowledge.
Follow the thread
Meet more of the women behind the work.
