Tourism Cabinet Secretary Najib Balala. FILE PHOTO | NMG
The tourism industry has lost Sh80 billion in the first six
months of the year, Tourism Cabinet Secretary Najib Balala said Monday,
highlighting the adverse effects of Covid-19.
Mr Balala
said the sector that contributed about 10 percent of the gross domestic
product was on its knees mainly due to ban on international flights and
movement restrictions that have affected domestic tourism.
“Coronavirus
started in December 2019, and we have lost almost Sh80 billion in
revenue. This is equivalent to almost half of the revenues we had in the
last financial year,” said Mr Balala.
Kenya’s tourism
earnings grew by 3.9 percent to Sh163.6 billion last year as arrivals
defied terror threats and global geopolitics to remain above the
two-million mark last year.
The earnings improved from the Sh157.4 billion in 2018, but was slower than the previous year.
Mr Balala projected that the earning from the sector would even
drop sharply in the next six months, “because the aviation sector that
supports tourism is yet to come back to life.”
To bring
back the sector, Mr Balala called upon investors to embrace the
domestic market, adding that the international tourism would only bounce
back towards the end of 2021.
He challenged players in
the domestic market to set up the right prices for their products,
noting that poor pricing was discouraging Kenyans from taking up the
products in the sector.
“Domestic tourism is sensitive
to pricing. Why charge a local tourist $30 (Sh30,000) to visit Maasai
Mara yet he can use the same amount to go to Dubai?” he posed.
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