Kenya’s tourism on upsurge! Tanzania ranks 2nd as tourist source after US


Devdiscourse News Desk | Nairobi | Updated: 08-01-2019 23:15 IST | Created: 08-01-2019 23:15 IST
Kenya’s tourism on upsurge! Tanzania ranks 2nd as tourist source after US
A good number of around 212,216 Tanzanian tourists visited Kenya in 2018 while Uganda ranked third for contributing of around 204,082 visitors (Image Credit: Wikipedia)
  • Country:
  • Kenya
  • Tanzania

The number of tourists Kenya recorded in 2018 crossed two million. Among the nations that contributed tourist sources to Kenya, Tanzania is reported to have contributed 10 percent of the visitors the East African country received in the last year.

Kenya recorded 2.03 million tourists in 2018, a 37.3 per cent growth from 1.47 million in 2017. The earnings of country’s tourism industry also went high substantially to Sh157.38 billion, which is 31.26 percent compared to Sh119.9 billion earned in 2017, as reported by Standard Digital.

Among all the countries, Tanzania stood second after the United States (ranked first for contributed 225,157 tourists). A good number of around 212,216 Tanzanian tourists visited Kenya in 2018 while Uganda ranked third for contributing of around 204,082 visitors. an approx. 184,000 visitors from the United Kingdom and 78,000 from Germany visited the East African nation. Other key markets for the tourism industry were India, Canada, Ethiopia, China and South Africa.

Although the data for other key foreign exchange earners for the entire 2018 are not revealed yet, tourism is expected to have outshined the tea sector to become the second highest forex earner after diaspora remittances. Tea earnings stood at Sh119 billion as of October 2018 while remittances by Kenyans living abroad brought in Sh251 billion as of November, according to information by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS).

According to Kenya’s current secretary for tourism, Najib Balala, the growth in the industry is attributed to the country’s marketing campaign, political stability, improved stability and more fund influx by the global players in the sectors like airlines and hospitality.

“We have huge potential. This potential is not going to be fulfilled because as we know we have become a global market space. We cannot continue to ply the same products we have been plying for the last 20 years and we expect a change,” Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta opined.

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