Kenya emerges as a popular travel destination for Middle East travellers
Kenya is increasingly its promotion activities aimed at attracting tourists from the Middle East as its tourist industry has been recovering from a slump due to recent events like kidnappings of tourists by Somali pirates and weakness in the euro-zone economy.
Against such a backdrop, the United Arab Emirates presents Kenya with huge opportunity to tap tourist arrivals by virtue of its proximity that Kenya enjoys with a less than five hours flight time from Dubai to Nairobi. There are many airlines that provide easy connectivity and frequency to Nairobi from UAE, including Kenya Airways, Emirates Airlines (from Dubai), Air Arabia (from Sharjah), and Etihad Airways (from Abu Dhabi). Kenya has an Embassy in the UAE in Abu Dhabi and a Consulate General in Dubai making visa processing in Dubai much more convenient. Most expatriates are able to process their visa on arrival.
The UAE and Kenya have also signed a double-taxation avoidance agreement, which included the clause that all the UAE’s national carriers would be exempt from taxes in Kenya.
“We plan to organise a special familiarisation trip for schools to further expand our reach and explore new areas of inbound tourist traffic from the Middle East,” said Jacinta Nzioka, Director of Marketing for Kenya Tourism Board. “Through our participation in the Arabian Travel Market we hope to further consolidate our position as a popular tourist destination for travellers from the Middle east by showcasing our varied tourist attractions,” she said.
According to recent reports the number of outbound trips from the UAE increased by 5 per cent last year, with as many as 3.5 million outbound visitors. With this surge in growth in the UAE tourism industry, Kenya Tourism Board seeks to woo travellers from the UAE and emerge as a popular destination for visitors from the region. The Kenya Tourism Board aims to grow sales by 10,000 from 18,428 to 28,428 UAE by December 2017. The global consolidated arrivals in to Kenya for 2016 closed at 1,307,351, a 10.4% growth over 2015 that recorded 1,183,847.
Added advantages to travel to kenya include the recent incentives like park fees reduction, waiver of visa fees for children under 16 and the Charter Incentive Programme (CIP) as part of the other programmes that are aimed at growing Kenya’s attractiveness for travellers from the Middle East.
UAE is the principal market for Kenya in the greater GCC market that consists of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.
In 2016, the UAE was the fifth largest source market for Kenya globally.
