The number of international tourists visiting the country is expected to hit 2.1m by the end of the year with over 900,000 tourists having visited the country ahead of the high season
The rise in the numbers has been attributed to improved marketing, emergence of new markets and new tourism destinations.
This emerged when stakeholders met in Lake Naivasha to formulate a Tourism Satellite Account which will be used measure the impact of tourism sector to the country’s economy.
According to the acting CEO Tourism Research Institute David Gitonga, the country earned Sh157B from over 2m international visitors last year.
“Already over 900,000 international tourists have visited the country and our projections are that this will rise to over 2.1m as the high peak season is ahead of us,” he said.
On the Tourism Satellite Account, Gitonga said that this will ensure that the investors and stakeholders had latest data on time to help them prepare and market their businesses.
He said that the project was designed to capture all the aspects of tourism activities with a view to bring out the true value of the sector’s contribution to GDP among other indicators.
“The development of TSA is being done based on the TSA methodological framework developed by the United Nations World Tourism Organization,” he said.
Dr Geoffrey Manyara, from UN economic commission for Africa said that the project would be carried out in six months adding that this would make Kenya the fourth country to have a TSA.
He said that already South Africa, Botswana and Rwanda had the satellite account which would help in policy formulation and measure direct impact to the GDP.
“Currently Africa contributes to 4.5 percent of tourists in the world and the TSA will market the East Africa region so that number of tourists can rise from the current 5.8m to 35m by 2024,”
Manyara said that Kenya was currently targeting more visitors from Nigeria and Egypt which were now new tourism markets.
On his part, the MD Tourism Finance Corporation (TFC) Orumoi Jonah said that the players in the sector had continued to investor heavily mainly in the counties.
“The Tourism Satellite Account data will enable TFC to make informed decisions in determining the specific Investments to be done in different parts of the country,” he said.
