State bets on local tourism as terror strikes hurt travel

Politics and policy

East Africa, Commerce and Tourism secretary Phyllis Kandie. Photo/Salaton Njau 

By GERALD ANDAE
 

The government is betting on domestic tourism to shore up the sector that has been hit hard after terror attacks by Al-Qaeda-linked Islamist militants. 

East Africa, Commerce and Tourism secretary Phyllis Kandie said the number of international visitors had dropped by seven per cent since the terror attack at the Westgate Shopping Mall in Nairobi last September.

Ms Kandie said Kenya was targeting local tourists as well as those from Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi to soften the impact of diminished arrivals from Europe.

“Tourism is very sensitive to terrorism but we have taken initiative to ease these sensitivities,” said Ms Kandie.

“We have seen the potential that the domestic tourism has and we are aiming at carrying out sensitisation activities as a ministry with the view to tapping these numbers,” she added while offering a brief on the performance of her ministry over the past year and its future plans.

READ: Uhuru says tourism sector "on its knees" after attacks

Kenya has launched the EAC Tourist Visa and the single identity card that will play a critical in easing the movement of people across the region, boosting tourism.

Arrivals in Kenya in the first five months of 2013 were down 15 per cent from the previous year as visitors stayed away, worried by attacks blamed on Somalia’s al Shabaab and by fears of trouble around elections in March.

Full-year tourist figures have not been published yet. The industry contributes about 10 per cent to Kenya’s GDP and employs 150,000 people.

On Monday, an explosion in Nairobi killed six people and wounded several others. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Last Tuesday, Kenya ordered all Somali refugees living in towns to return to their camps in a bid to
end the attacks.

On April 23, gunmen killed six worshippers in a church near the port city of Mombasa, the heart of the country’s coastal strip and a tourist magnet.

Police on Friday said they shot dead two suspects in that attack, but a third escaped with gunshot wounds.

Last week, police arrested two men found with two large bombs in a car that they intended to use in Mombasa.

In the worst attack so far by the al Shabaab militia, which wants Kenyan troops out of Somalia, at least 67 people were killed at the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi last September.