Kenya’s Cabinet secretary for tourism and Wildlife Najib Balala, has said, More than 2.5 million Kenyans working in the tourism industry lost their jobs in the last five months due to COVID-19 related disruptions.
“The tourism sector has been hit hard and we need to look at tourism and aviation and invest today, let us push hard and when COVID goes away our economy will be totally different,” Balala said during a webinar on opening Africa’s economies safely amidst COVID-19 held in Nairobi.
Balala said hotels and lodges were provided with 30 million dollars to facilitate their refurbishing.
“Our facilities have been in a deplorable state making them difficult to be used, we need to refurbish them in order for them to continue giving services,” said Balala.
Additionally he said micro, small and medium enterprises, particularly the tourism and aviation sectors have been severely affected due to requisite preventive measures to curb the spread of the virus such as prolonged lock downs and quarantining of transnational travelers.
Kenya is known around the world for its natural beauty, its variety of attractions, and the hospitality of its people. The tourism industry provides not only for the people of Kenya a major economic development took but it also helps to improve the nation’s quality of life for all of Kenya’s citizens
