International tourists push earnings, transport up

Tourists from Europe who are on holidays along the Coastal beaches, are taken on a tour within the Old Town as the high tourism season begins, January 20, 2020. [Gideon Maundu, Standard]  

Tourism earnings grew by 3.9 per cent last year to Sh163.6 billion from Sh157.4 billion recorded in 2018, according to Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) 2020 Economic Survey released yesterday.

The growth was associated with general political stability in the country after the “handshake” between President Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga, which saw the two leaders put aside their political differences in a bid to unite Kenyans after a divisive presidential election in 2017.

This comes as the sector saw slower growth in the number of visitors arriving in the country, registering a 0.4 per cent growth in 2019 compared to 14.0 per cent rise in 2018.

Hoteliers had a good a year as the number of bed occupancy grew by 6.3 per cent on the back of increased number of international and local conferences last year. International arrivals increased by 0.4 per cent from 2.027 million in 2018 to 2.035 million last year, surpassing the two million-mark for the second successive year.

Jomo Kenyatta International airport recorded 1.9 per cent growth in tourist arrivals from 1.403 million in 2018 to 1.430 million last year, while Moi International Airport Mombasa saw international arrivals contract by 17.3 per cent from 138,000 2018 to 114,100 in 2019.

Transport expansion

And with the reduction in international oil prices, growth in tourism and general expansion in all modes of transport saw the value output in transport and storage sector increase by 12.1 per cent last year from Sh1.2 billion in 2018 to Sh1.3 billion.

The Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) freight services, which was launched in 2018, posted and improved performance compared to the commuter service that was launched six months earlier. Revenue earned from SGR freight transport increased almost three-fold from Sh4.09 billion in 2018 to Sh11.8 billion in 2019.

While the volume of freight transported through the SGR increased by 43.5 per cent to 4,159 tonnes, passenger journeys via the railway dropped by four per cent, from 1.6 million in 2018 to 1.5 million in 2019 although revenue earned by the commuter service increased by 6.6 per cent.

At the Mombasa port, total cargo throughput increased by 11.3 per cent from 30.9 million tonnes in 2018 to 34.4 million tonnes last year.