• It took 10 years for tourism to recover from PEV. Corona undid that in three months
Image: STAR ILLUSTRATED
When 2020 began, Kenyan tourism stakeholders were optimistic that this year would be better than the five previous years.
In 2018, Kenya for the first time crossed the two million mark of international arrivals into the country, and in 2019, the numbers grew by another 1.2 per cent.
In 2018, Tourism CS Najib Balala said Kenya received 2,025,206 international tourists, and in 2019, the number grew to 2,048,000, a 1.2 per cent growth.
Earnings from the tourism sector increased by 4 per cent in 2019 to stand at Sh163 billion, compared to the Sh157. 4 billion recorded in 2018.
However, the number of global tourists to Kenya this year is expected to drop by a bigger margin, and the number of arrivals might not cross the two-million mark.
Last month, Balala told the Star the exponential spread of Covid-19 has affected the global aviation industry, and consequently, this has hurt tourism.
Balala said Kenya’s tourism top source markets have been affected by the pandemic.
The country has also suspended all international passenger flights. Only cargo flights are allowed into the country or passenger flights coming to evacuate a nation's citizens.
“This is a global crisis. It is worrying us and we might lose our target,” Balala said.
As of Sunday morning (April 5), the world had 1,203,485 Covid-19 positive cases and 64,784 deaths in more than 180 countries, according to the World Health Organisation.
The 10 countries most hit by the pandemic are the United States, Spain, Italy, Germany, France, China, Iran, United Kingdom, Turkey, Switzerland and Belgium.
This is bad for tourism as the US, Italy, Germany UK and China are some of Kenya’s top source markets.
Last year, the US remained Kenya’s leading market with 245,437 entries, whereas both the UK and China had more than 77,000 arrivals each.
However, as of Sunday, the US had 311,616 cases of Covid-19, Italy had 124,632 and China and the United Kingdom had 41, 903 and 81,669 cases respectively.
Kenya has already recorded 126 cases of Covid-19 and four deaths.
In the region, Uganda has remained Kenya’s top contributor to tourism with 223,010 visitors in 2019, as Tanzania follows with its 193,740 citizens coming to Kenya.
Since the 2007 post-election violence, Kenya’s tourism sector has not been able to recover.
In 2013- 2014, the Coast region experienced a number of sporadic terror attacks from the Somalia-based al Shabab militia group.
The attacks led to the issuing of travel advisories to the region by western nations. In May 2014, the United Kingdom sent a flight to evacuate over 500 citizens from Mombasa.
Before the 2007 post-election violence, Moi International Airport Mombasa was receiving over 36 weekly charter flights. It was not until 2018 when the flights started to resume in the country. Last year, at least 15 flights resumed weekly flights to Mombasa.
In cruise ship business, last year, Kenya received at least six cruise ships at the port of Mombasa. However, this year, only one ship has docked.
With the Covid-19 threat, the tourism sector will have to wait longer for it to recover, according to tourism stakeholders in the region.
Edited by T Jalio