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Worsening Outlook For Tourism Sector The outlook for Kenyan tourism has
deteriorated sharply since our last quarterly update. In mid-October
2011 Kenyan military forces crossed the border into Somalia to crack
down on the Al-Shabaab terrorist organisation. This followed two
high-profile kidnappings and murders carried out by suspected Al- Shabab
members inside Kenya. In the first incident, on September 11 2011, a
58-year-old British man, David Tebbutt, was murdered when six armed men
burst into his holiday cottage at the Kiwayu Safari Village, which lies
only 28 miles from the Somali border. His wife Judith, 56, was kidnapped
and is now believed to being held in Somalia. Two Kenyan men have since
appeared in court in connection with the kidnapping, although both have
pleaded not guilty to the charges against them.
Kenya Tourism Market Report Q1 2012
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In the second incident, a 66-year old disabled French woman, Marie
Dedieu, who spent 7-8 months each year living in Kenya, was taken by
kidnappers from her house on the island of Manda on October 1 2011. By
mid-October, it was announced that she had died in captivity somewhere
in Somalia as she needed to take medication every four hours, which the
kidnappers did not take with her. As with the prior incident, it is
suspected that local people must have been complicit in planning the
kidnapping at least.
Both incidents have shocked the world and are likely to result in a
spate of holiday cancellations as the security situation around the
Kenyan-Somali border worsens. Western governments have been quick to
update travel advice as a result of the worsening situation, with the UK
Foreign and Commonwealth Office advising ‘against all but essential
travel to within 60km of the Somali border and to coastal areas within
150km of the Kenya-Somalia border. This includes the Lamu area’.
Against this backdrop, we have revised downward our tourist arrivals
forecasts for 2011 and 2012. We now believe that 2011 could well see a
fall in tourist arrivals over the full year, to around 1.04mn. This
would represent a 5% drop year on year (y-o-y) and would also mark a
severe blow to the industry, which had recorded 13.5 % annual growth
over H111, to reach 549,083 arrivals, according to the Ministry of
Tourism. However, we think that arrivals data over the last quarter of
the year will show significant declines as tourists try to cancel their
holidays in the wake of rising tensions.
In future, much will depend on how the security situation develops
over the coming months. Although Kenya’s tourism ministry has released a
statement saying that Kenya is not at war with Somalia and that the
military response on Al-Shabaab will not affect tourism activities in
the country, it is clear that Western tourists in particular will likely
stay away from Kenya for at least the next six months. We believe it is
prudent to revise down our forecasts for 2012 as well, at least until
there is greater clarity over the future of military action by Kenyan
forces in Somalia.
The effect of escalating military action will have differing effects
on different aspects of Kenyan tourism. Given its location, we expect
inbound tourism to Lamu to be hit particularly hard. On the other hand,
safari holidays – which take place much further inside Kenya – should be
relatively unaffected. That said, perception is everything when it
comes to tourism demand and any further deterioration in the security
situation – for example another grenade attack in Nairobi similar to the
twin attack of October 2011 which killed one person and injured more
than 20 people – would likely put further downward pressure on arrivals
and revenue numbers over the medium term.
Consequently, we have just made alterations to our 2011 and 2012
forecasts for now. We will continue to monitor the situation to see if
further changes need to be made to our forecasts in Q212.
New Classification System Being Considered
In March 2011, the Ministry of Tourism announced that it would be
carrying out a major hotel reclassification process across the country,
in an effort to improve standards for visiting tourists. The process was
last carried out in 2000 and was marred by allegations of bribery.
However, by May 2011 the All Africa website was reporting that a
shortage of assessors, plus the fact that many hotels are currently
closed for renovation works, had forced the Ministry of Tourism to
suspend the process temporarily. According to the Kenya Hotel Keepers
and Caterers Association, there are over 5,000 hotels in Kenya and only
19 assessors are available for the classification and rating.
If carried out properly, BMI believes that the development of a new
national classification system will be a great help to the evolution of
the Kenyan hospitality industry, allowing tourists to be better informed
about the standard of accommodation available across the country.
Airline Industry Expanding
In recent years, there has been a steady increase in the number of
visitors travelling to Kenya by air, with passenger numbers (arrivals,
departures and transit) passing through Jomo Kenyatta International
Airport in Nairobi rising by 8% y-o-y in 2010, to reach 5.49mn.
Passengers passing through Moi International Airport (MIA) in Mombasa
also rose, by 14.1% y-o-y to reach 1.27mn. The other seven airports
operated by the Kenya Airport Authority (KAA) saw passenger numbers of
760,000, making for total passengers handled by KAA of 7.52mn in 2010.
In terms of arrivals alone, a total of 1.23mn travellers arrived in
Kenya over 2010, making up over half of all visitor arrivals. Rising
visitor numbers have led to KAA seeking funding to carry out the
modernisation of JKIA, which is ongoing.
- Executive Summary
- SWOT Analysis
- Kenya Tourism SWOT
- Kenya Political SWOT
- Kenya Economic SWOT
- Kenya Business Environment SWOT
- Industry Forecast Scenario
- Arrivals
- Table: Arrivals Data, 2008-2015
- Accommodation
- Table: Accommodation Data, 2008-2015
- Expenditure
- Table: Tourist Expenditure & Economic Impact, 2008-2015
- Inbound Tourism
- Table: Tourist Arrivals By Region, 2008-2015 (‘000, unless stated)
- Outbound Tourism
- Table: Outbound Tourism Data, 2008-2015
- Market Overview – Travel
- Commercial Airlines
- Road Transport
- Global Oil Products Price Outlook
- Market Overview – Hospitality
- Accommodation
- Accommodation Developments
- Tourism Regions In Kenya
- Tourism Infrastructure
- Land
- Tourism Bank
- Industry Associations
- Business Environment Outlook
- Kenyan Business Environment Developments
- Table: Middle East And Africa Travel And Tourism Business Environment Ratings
- Global Assumptions
- Europe On The Edge
- Table: Global Assumptions, 2009-2015
- Table: Global And Regional Real GDP Growth, 2010-2013 (% chg y-o-y)
- Table: Developed Market Exchange Rates, 2010-2013
- Table: Emerging Market Exchange Rates, 2010-2013
- Developed States
- Table: Developed States Real GDP Growth Forecasts, 2010-2013 (%chg y-o-y)
- Emerging Markets
- Table: Emerging Markets Real GDP Growth Forecasts, 2010-2013 (% chg y-o-y)
- Table: Real GDP Growth Consensus Forecasts, 2011-2012 (%chg y-o-y)
- Company Profiles
- Heritage Management
- Kenya Airways
- TPS East Africa
- BMI Methodology
- How We Generate Our Industry Forecasts
- Tourism Industry
- Tourism Ratings – Methodology
- Table: Tourism Business Environment Indicators
- Table: Weighting of Components
- Sources
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