Piracy threatens early gains in tourist arrivals

By Macharia Kamau and Reuters

Tourist arrivals to Kenya for the four months to April went up 16 per cent.

The number of visitors to the country through its main ports of entry increased to 336,179 from 289,518 over the same period last year.

Kenya Tourist Board (KTB), however, said despite the industry tending to a full recovery, increased instances of piracy off the Somali coast are threatening the sector’s recovery after a tumultuous two years following the post election violence and the global financial crisis.

The visitors arriving to Mombasa on cruise ships between January and April this year declined by a whopping 95 per cent to 508 from 11,000 last year.

KTB Chairman Jake Grieves-Cook said while the piracy problem was not exclusive to Kenya, the country stood to suffer if a permanent solution is not arrived at soon.

Piracy has started to play out as a serious threat to the industry, with many cruise tourists taking alternative routes or cancelling their trips all together.

According to the board, cancellations by tourists on cruise have been on the rise as for instance there were no cruises registered in the months of November and December last year.

Overall however, Grieves-Cook said the industry would post a better performance this year.

A million targeted

"For 2010 ... our target remains more than a million visitors flying in, more than $1 billion revenue attributable to tourism," he said.

The industry has been using 2007 as its performance benchmark when arrivals were in excess of 1 million and the revenues stood at Sh65.4 billion. KTB Chief Executive Muriithi Ndegwa said the Board has been intensifying marketing activities to the traditional and non-traditional tourist source markets for the country.

The leading markets for Kenyan tourists are from Western Europe and North America including Britain, the United States, Italy and Germany.

Mr Ndegwa, however, said there are plans to increase marketing activities in China, Brazil and India as well as diversify product offering including selling the country as a honeymoon destination.