Kenya’s tourist arrivals through its two main airports dropped significantly in 2020 as COVID-19 cut international travel, curtailing tourism activities.
The east African nation received 439,487 tourists in 2020 through Jomo Kenyatta and Moi international airports, down from 1.54 million in 2019, new data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) released Wednesday showed.
The two airports are the major entry points for tourists into the east African nation.
Between April and July, tourist arrivals were almost nil as the pandemic hit the country and major sources of tourists including Europe and America.
Kenya in April received only 12 tourists, with the disease having been detected in the country in mid-March, according to KNBS.
But arrivals recovered from September, where they stood at 20,164 to peak at 47,406 in December 2020, showed the KNBS data.
Kenyan Cabinet Secretary for Tourism and Wildlife Najib Balala recently said the sector was on the verge of collapse in 2020 due to travel restrictions occasioned by the pandemic, but it’s now recovering slowly.
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