Kenya is seeking to increase tourism arrivals to 5.5 million by June 2028 in a bid to grow the sector’s contribution to the economy, the sector’s main agency said.
The projected jump in arrivals would lead to annual revenues of 1 trillion shillings ($7 billion) a year by June 2028 from $2 billion in 2022, the Kenya Tourist Board said in a statement.
Tourism is among the top sectors in Kenya that generate the most foreign exchange earnings, with wildlife safaris and beach vacations along its Indian Ocean coastline its main tourist attractions.
Although tourists arrivals reached 1.54 million in the fiscal year to June 2022, they were still well below pre-pandemic levels of 1.9 million in 2019, the tourism agency established to market Kenya abroad said.
Francis Gichaba, chairman of the agency, expressed hope that tourist arrivals in this fiscal year to June 2024 might reach two million, noting that the sector is on a recovery path from the Covid pandemic.
“We are very optimistic that with the support from the private sector and other key players in the industry, that our performance will even surpass the 2019 arrivals to over 2 million and grow progressively beyond this year,” said Gichaba.
He was speaking at a meeting of hoteliers, tour operators, travel agents, tourism associations and government agencies in the capital Nairobi that was held to map out the growth of the tourism industry.
Under a new strategy approved at the meeting, players in the sector hope to grow tourism’s contribution to Kenya’s GDP to 10% in fiscal year 2027 from 6.4% in 2022, the statement said.
The East African country also aims to increase its market share of tourism in Africa to 6% from the current 2% during the same period, the participants at the meeting said.
(Editing by Seban Scaria seban.scaria@lseg.com)
