•Tourism Research Institute(TRI) data shows 44.9 per cent of the international arrivals came to Kenya for business and MICE(Meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions).
•Tanzania for the first time overtook the US and Uganda to become Kenya’s leading tourist source market. International arrival at JKIA /FILE Most visitors to Kenya in September came for business deals and meetings, latest government data shows, as month-on-month arrivals almost doubled to 26,018.
This is 85.2 per cent up compared to the 14,049 visitors who came into the country in August after the resumption of international flights.
Tourism Research Institute(TRI) data shows 44.9 per cent of the international arrivals (11,696 visitors) came to Kenya for business and MICE (Meetings, incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions), signalling Kenya’s regional importance as a trade and business hub.
This is contrary to the traditional trends where visitors coming in for holiday and leisure top the list of international arrivals with over 100,000 visitors a month pre-Covid period.
At least 7,782 visitors (29.9%) were in the country to see family and friends, making it the second most popular purpose of visit.
Holidaying came in a distant third with 4,295 arrivals for the month (16.5%) of total arrivals, a month.
Tanzania for the first time became Kenya’s leading tourist source market, beating top markets of US and Uganda which have traditionally led on international and regional context, respectively.
During the months under review, Tanzania led as the top market sources with 4,309 visitors followed by Uganda with 3,812 arrivals. The US was third with 3,458 of its citizens visiting the country.
Other purposes of visit were medical (418 arrivals), education(252), religion (137) and sports 33 visitors. A total 1,405 visitors passed through Kenya, on transit, during the month.
Jomo Kenyatta International Airport handled 16,666 visitors , Moi International Airport (Mombasa) recorded 654 arrivals while other airports handled 98 international visitors.At least 21 airlines, among them national carrier-Kenya Airways are serving the two major airports.KQ, as it is known by its international code, flies to 20 destinations with weekly frequencies of between two and nine to key cities.Dubai tops with nine weekly flights. It has seven weekly flights to Entebbe(Uganda), Kigali(Rwanda), Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), Juba (South Sudan) and Bujumbura(Burundi).Other airlines with high frequencies are Qatar and Ethiopian each with 14 weekly frequencies are Rwanda Air (12) Emirates and Uganda Airlines(seven) and Turkish Airlines (five).Arrivals through other points of entry, which are cross-border movement from neighbouring countries of Tanzania, Uganda and Somalia […]
