The Kenyan coast is increasingly becoming a local tourist attraction and weekend destination.
With the drastic decrease in arrivals from abroad and the current downsizing of transport linked to tourism and long-haul destinations, the hospitality industry on the shores of the Indian Ocean, which has more than 300 hotels with good accommodation capacity and thousands of beds, needs to return to at least 40% occupancy and for this reason is looking for new formulas to attract those who want and are able to travel during this period.
Not only from the capital Nairobi but, thanks to continental connections, from Addis Ababa, Kigali in Rwanda and Entebbe-Kampala in Uganda.
The demand is mainly for weekends and public holidays and recently the demand for flights has increased so much that Kenya Airways' low-cost carrier, Jambojet, has decided to add additional Nairobi-Mombasa routes from Friday to Monday.
Already last May Jambojet had introduced a daily early morning flight (6.35am) both for businessmen who wanted to reach Nairobi and return in the evening, and for those especially on Friday evening who were ready to enjoy the weekend on the coast, returning to work directly on Monday morning.
It should be noted that the cost of Nairobi-Mombasa flights has risen slightly, ranging from 5000 to 7000 shillings depending on the day and time of departure.
Next week the schools will close and, as there are no holidays in August to make up for the lessons after the closures due to the pandemic, it is assumed that many families will decide to take their children to the sea and to more temperate climates. Many hotels, including in Diani and Malindi and Watamu, have already prepared family packages and attractions for children, with targeted offers and special prices.
Certainly every player in the tourism sector cannot sit on his hands at this time and certainly cannot wait until the end of 2023, the period predicted by experts for the return of international tourism to the levels of the two years prior to the crisis caused by the Covid-19.