Tourists postpone visits to year-end

Tourists at a beach in Mombasa. FILE PHOTO | NMG

What you need to know:

  • Tom Blakey of UK's Wayfairer Travel said most of their customers had postponed their plans to late 2020 to 2021.

The UK and the US have dealt local hospitality industry a fresh blow after postponing trips to late this year and next year amid travel restrictions over the Covid-19 pandemic.

Tom Blakey of UK's Wayfairer Travel said most of their customers had postponed their plans to late 2020 to 2021.

"We have some bookings for those periods, but very few compared to 'normal' times," Mr Blakey said.

In March, the government banned local and international flights to control the spread of the virus. However, this had an adverse impact on the tourism sector, resulting in several investors closing down operations and firing employees.

This came as latest Africa's safari company Safaribooking.com data shows that 93 percent of tour operators have lost three quarters of their bookings that they normally make during this time of the year.

The survey, which was done in June from 3 to 6, involved 308 tour operators in Kenya, Tanzania, Namibia, South Africa, among others.

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