Slightly more than a third of the 1.3 million international tourists who visited Kenya in the 11 months to November came for holidays, lowering the average spend per visitor.
Data from the Kenya Tourism Board (KTB) shows the number of holiday visitors in the period stood at 523,344, representing 39.6 percent of overall arrivals that increased 74.5 percent from the 757,354 recorded in a similar period last year.
Those visiting friends and relatives, especially from Uganda and Tanzania, accounted for 26 percent of the arrivals while those attending short business and conference meetings were 26.1 percent of the 1.3 million visitors.
Often visitors on holidays tend to spend more through their stay in luxury hotels and time spent on Kenya’s sandy beaches as well as game drives in game parks like Maasai Mara, Tsavo and Amboseli.
“As KTB, we will need to promote medical, conference, and sports tourism as well as other sources of income generation for the country’s tourism offerings,” said Bobby Kimani, a director at the Kenya Tourism Board at KTB told the Business Daily.
“Innovation will be key in securing other streams of income that will ultimately increase earnings in a docket that is key to Kenya’s revenue sources.”
Last year, the country saw 870,465 arrivals that brought in Sh146.5 billion, translating to an average spend of Sh168,300 per tourist.
Kenya slightly lags behind among East African peers Tanzania and Uganda in tourism earnings with last year’s postings for the two countries standing at $1.4 billion (Sh172.5 billion) and $1.6 billion (Sh197 billion) respectively.
Earnings of the two countries are driven by higher spending per tourist.
KTB, the country’s lead marketing agency, has unveiled promotional videos translated into the languages of key tourism markets including China, Spain, Germany, France and the United Arab Emirates countries in efforts to boost the industry sales.
The Middle East and Asia including China accounted for one percent and 9.1 percent of the visitors in the 11 months to November.
Africa arrivals, mainly those visiting friends or attending business and conferences, accounted for 42.8 percent or 565,319 tourists.
Europe’s share stood at 28.8 percent and Americas (US, Mexico and Canada) had 17.3 percent share.
Kenya’s tourism earnings more than doubled to Sh167.1 billion in the eight months to August from Sh83 billion partly due to a recovery from the pandemic.
Tourism alongside horticulture, tea and remittances are Kenya’s top foreign exchange earners, but foreign visitor numbers are still well below pre-pandemic levels.
Local travellers have also been taking advantage of lower prices.
Earnings slumped to Sh88.6 billion in 2020 as governments around the world restricted the movement of people, including through the closure of air spaces, to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
They bounced back to Sh146 billion last year, with the number of hotel nights occupied by Kenyan travellers doubling during the period.
Local resorts, which normally concentrate their marketing efforts on foreign tourists, were forced to turn to the domestic market by the pandemic, offering cut rates to entice holidaymakers. Foreign visitor numbers are still sharply lower than pre-pandemic levels, against 2.04 million in 2019.
From safaris in the Maasai Mara and other wildlife reserves to holidays on Indian Ocean beaches, Kenya’s tourism industry contributes about 10 percent of economic output and employs more than two million people.
The sector shed nearly 1.2 million jobs after the onset of the pandemic, the tourism ministry said, but has clawed back some of those losses on the back of the recovery.
During the year under review, the US maintained its long-held position as the leading source market standing at 190, 187 followed closely by Uganda which had 132,942 of its citizens visit Kenya.
Only China and Russia declined at 38.1 percent and 11.2 percent respectively, underscoring the impact of the back-to-back lockdowns in Beijing and the Russia-Ukraine war on the industry.
Rwanda’s supply of tourists surpassed pre-Covid levels by 11.5 percent by posting 41,818 up from 37,513 in 2019 while South Sudan increased its numbers from 20,745 in 2019 to 28,693 this year translating to a 38.3 surge.
