* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Macharia Kamau was a participant in our Financial and Economic Reporting course in Johannesburg in June.
Kenya’s tourism industry is expected to suffer lower visitor numbers and earnings due to a mix of factors that are making the country seem unattractive to tourists.
The run-up to the general elections due in March 2013 have caused increased political noise levels, making the country appear unstable, while a rise in the number of indiscriminate attacks in Nairobi and other areas that have been linked to terrorists has made Kenya unattractive to tourists. Analysts say a combination of these factors might deal a heavy blow to the industry that is heavily reliant on peace and stability.
In addition, the Eurozone debt crisis is expected to see tourists from Kenya’s significant tourist source markets revise their travel plans to Kenya and other long haul destinations. Western European countries including Britain, Germany, Italy, France and Spain accounted for more than one third of the 1.26 million tourists to Kenya in 2011.
Simon Freemantle, senior analyst at Standard Bank’s African Political Economy Unit, said there is a high likelihood that European travellers will reduce luxury travel, which might affect travel to Kenya.
He added that other than Europeans cutting travel plans to deal with problems back home, Kenya’s tourism industry faced myriad challenges including growing political risk.
“Kenya’s tourism will definitely be impacted not only by the Eurozone crisis but also political risks with the elections expected in March 2013 and security issues that the country has in the recent past been grappling with,” said Freemantle.
Tourism is one of Kenya’s top foreign exchange earners alongside tea, cut flowers and coffee and earned the country Sh97 billion in 2011.
Kenya Tourist Board (KTB) expects the recent developments in Europe to affect both the industry’s earnings and tourist numbers but only in the short term.
Muriithi Ndegwa, KTB managing director, acknowledged that hitting a three-million-visitor-mark target by end of 2012 will be difficult given the security concerns of source markets with several countries issuing negative travel advisories to their citizens and the economic situation in Europe, both of which might cause travellers to revise their plans.
“We expect to visitor numbers to remain at the same levels as last year (at 1.26 million) and probably a marginal increase in earnings,” he said in an e-mail response.
Ndegwa, whose organisation is mandated to market Kenya as a tourism destination both in Kenya and abroad, added that there have been efforts to boost security in the country– including increased security personnel on tourist facilities. He expected this to help increase confidence among tourists considering travel to Kenya.
“The issue of insecurity cannot be ignored since it has a lot of impact not only on tourism but on the economy at large... we are happy that the government has put in place a raft of security measures,” he said.
KTB has in recent years attempted to diversify Kenya’s tourist source markets to include Asia and the rest of Africa. Ndegwa said these have been bearing fruit and the country is slowly seeing growth in visitor numbers from India and China.
