Browsing: Tourism in East Africa

Tourism is and has been the world’s largest industry up until the Covid-19 pandemic hit in December last year. 

Countries both in the developed and developing world have seen ecotourism become the fastest growing sector within the tourism industry. With the potential it has, many governments have invested in the sector by ensuring that players are able to maximize output and productivity through rebates and tax relief which saw the sector grow in leaps and bounds. 

However, the pandemic put a damper stifling the growth of the sector and in some cases rolling back gains made over the past few years. 

In East Africa, ecotourism is a powerful economic force since it has largely made an impact in preventing environmental destruction when correctly managed. With the promotion of community development and empowerment, the sector has created employment in areas that were previously failing under what was commonly referred to as

According to Kenya’s Tourism Sector Performance Report 2019(KTSPR 2019), Uganda and Tanzania continue to be major tourist sources for Kenya after the USA. The country received 245,437 tourists from America last year, the highest from one country, while Uganda was second with 223,010 followed by Tanzania at 193,740.

Growth in aviation sector

The increase in arrivals from Uganda was driven by the introduction of Uganda Airline’s direct flight from Entebbe to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) in Nairobi and Moi International Airport (MIA) in Mombasa in 2019.Arrivals from Uganda are expected to increase further this year.

Rwandan visitors to Kenya recorded the highest increase by 24.6 per cent, from 34,758 visitors in 2018 to 43,321 in 2019. That is according to international tourist arrivals data from Kenya’s department of immigration and border management. South Sudan was a close second in increase in visitors at 20.9 per cent, from 20,383 arrivals…