Reviving Domestic Tourism in Kenya

Kenya is an African country bordering the Indian Ocean in eastern Africa and features amazing wildlife and a beautiful coast line. Whatever your heart desires, Kenya has it all. That is why Kenya welcomes a lot of overseas tourists every year, but unfortunately the domestic tourism stays behind.

Most of the Kenyan population has not yet discovered domestic tourism, which means that they travel inside their own country, visiting people, with the goal to get to know their country. Tourism is a very important factor of income in the country as it has even surpassed the combined earnings from (exporting) coffee and tea. The tourism sector brings a lot of money and job opportunities with it, which the relatively poor Kenyan population can definitely use.

The government encourages the Kenyan population to discover domestic tourism, but still, the viability and constraints of domestic tourism for the population is not well understood by the government also as the potentials and certain limitations. 

There are several reasons for domestic tourism like expanding investment induced by domestic tourism, transfer resources from richer to poorer areas and communities, compensate for seasonal variations in overseas tourism thereby sustaining tourism demand and employment in tourism, maintain the number of visitors in Kenya because of the world economic recession wherefore the number of overseas visitors can decrease, international tourism is sensitive to bad publicity and competition with other countries who offer the same kind of attractions (like South Africa).

Kenyans have not yet embraced domestic tourism, the despite the fact that they have been so much encouraged. Hotels have done their part by encouraging the local people for domestic tourism by offering them reduced hotel rates. Though, the tourism facilities are mostly too expensive for the local population. Families must pay for their children going to school, health care and pay the rent for the house which results in a low disposable income which is left. From this income they cannot afford the accommodation and transportation costs. The economy of the country tends to be very unfavorable to people in that they are forced to go first things first, the basic needs before considering touring the country.

The Kenyan tourism system has for a long time been outward oriented and concentrating so much on international visitors, in that it has neglected the domestic tourism sector. More than half of the Kenyan hotel capacity is owned, controlled and managed by foreigners which leads to a significant loss of income for Kenya itself.

Read: Investing in Tourism and Real Estate in Mombasa County

A weakness of Kenya’s domestic tourism is to attract the Kenyans to the touristic highlights. Some Kenyans do want the same experience as the tourists, but others don’t. They want a differentiated product which includes unexploited activities like horse riding, hunting, fishing and mountain climbing. The development of these activities are expensive to develop but they can contribute to the development of domestic tourism because they can be found closer which also means that it is less expensive to travel there.

Kenya has well over 40 ethnic communities which could be exploited to enhance domestic tourism, the country offers 57 national parks and reserves, of which only the half is well-developed and visited and furthermore the country offers many archaeological and prehistoric sites. All these are opportunities to enhance domestic tourism together with diversifying the sun-bathing product. Development of these areas requires a lot of investments but in the end this will encourage Kenyans to travel to these places.

Furthermore, the establishment of small and medium sized hotels can help to spread tourism through different places, which provides new employment opportunities and it could make tourism more affordable to Kenyan people.

Article by Vera Shawiza.