Uganda Safaris News: Mountain Gorilla Trekking Tours, Wildlife Safari, Primates Tour

By Nakiboneka Halimah
Uganda Safaris and Travel News Reporter
Kampala Uganda

The tourism sector in Kenya is about to recover from the destruction of post election violence 10 months down the line with a reduction of 30 per cent in earnings in the third quarter of the year compared to the same period last year. The earnings stood at KSh34.5 billion compared to the KSh49.2 billion registered over the same period last year.

Ong’ong’a during the release of the sectors third quarter results noted that the post election violence and the after effects have adversely affected revenues to the sector. The sector has lost some Sh14.7 billion as compared to what was achieved over the same period last year. This is despite an estimated KSh350 million having been used in recovery efforts mostly on marketing and advertising in key source markets such as the United Kingdom and the United States of America.

 Kenya Tourist Board Managing Director Dr. Ong’ong’an Achieng continued to say that the recovery efforts will go on until the end of 2009 with the hope that the government will honour its pledge to increase funding to the sector by another Sh1 billion this financial year. In order for tourism in Kenya to get back to its standards and meet the other East African Countries take an example of Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda.

 The recovery programmes are expected to run until the end of 2009 and we expect through this process to reach the 2007 levels. The results still reveal a 30 per cent drop in consolidated tourist arrivals for the last nine months with the figure standing at 939,791 compared to 1.3 million over the same period last year. This was however a six per cent edge improvement against the second quarter.

The global tourism market has been seriously battered by the prevailing high fuel prices that heightened the cost of travel against a background of unstable financial markets and rising inflation levels.

High fuel prices for a significant part of the year increased the cost of air travel reducing the demand of long haul destinations from the major source markets. These factors also reduced the level of importance of travel in terms of priorities to an extent.

In terms of international arrivals by air and sea, the sector recorded a 36.6 per cent decline standing at 496,056 compared to the 782, 690 registered over the same period last year. Almost all the arrival categories registered a major decline compared to 2007 with the holiday segment dipping by 55 per cent while the business segment registered a 20.9 per cent drop. Cross boarder arrivals closed at 443,735 compared to 565,191 during the same period in 2007.