Kenya will lose billions of money following the cancellation of travel flights by the British tour companies.
By Friday evening, the Kenya tourism sector had lost Sh5 billion due to the cancellations made between Friday and October 2014.
TUI Travel, which operates Thomson Holidays and First Choice issued an travel advisory alert saying it had cancelled all its flights up to October 31.
This follows the recent terror attacks that have targeted Kenya with the latest being the twin explosions that took place in Gikomba market in Nairobi yesterday.
Hundreds of British tourists have been evacuated from the coastal resort area of Mombasa amid warnings of an attack.
Hundreds of British tourists have been evacuated from the coastal resort area of Mombasa amid warnings of an attack.
Kenya’s top five tourist source markets are UK with 149,699 arrivals, US with 115,636, Italy with 79,993 and India and Germany at 64,887 and 60,450 respectively according to the tourism performance results in 2013.
Stakeholders in the tourism sector have urged the government to intervene as the ongoing travel advisories will destroy the tourism industry.
The Kenya Association of Hotel Keepers and Caterers Chief Executive Officer Mike Macharia told Kenya’s Capital FM that about 900 tourists have left the country and there is need to salvage other bookings for the peak season in November.
The terror threats put the country at the risk of losing lots of money from the tourism sector.
Thomson Holidays posted an alert on its website informing its clients on Friday that it had cancelled all its flights up to October 31. “As a result of the change in Foreign and Commonwealth Office advice, the decision has been taken to cancel all our outbound flights to Mombasa,” read the alert.
By Friday, more than 600 tourists had left the country through the Coast of Mombasa for UK in two chartered planes.
TUI Travel said those already in the country would be flown home by Monday.
It said in a statement: “Although the advice does not include Moi International Airport, Diani beach or Malindi, the main road to access these resorts goes through the restricted area defined by the FCO advice. “This means that we are no longer able to offer holidays to the Kenyan coast at present.”
Meanwhile, Kenya’s tourism revenue in 2013 declined by 2.13 percent to close at KSh93.97 billion from KSh96 billion.
Kenya Union of Domestic Hotels Secretary General Robert Njeru told Capital FM Business that more than 30 hotels have already been closed in Mombasa affecting about 100,000 employees.
“If the visitors are not coming to Kenya we are going to get mass unemployment, as more hotels will be closed. It’s a high time the government takes action about this insecurity,” he said.
Insecurity caused tourist arrivals to decline marginally in 2013 according to the tourism sector performance as international arrivals by air and sea dropped by 11.7 percent to close at 1.09 million arrivals down from 1.23 million arrivals recorded in 2012 while Jomo Kenyatta International Airport arrivals dropped by 14 percent to 900,000 from 1.047 million recorded in 2012.
