East African Business Week

NAIROBI, KENYA - Fear and anxiety grippd the Kenyan tourism sector in the past few weeks after various embassies and high commissions in Nairobi on Wednesday maintained that travel bans against parts of Kenya instituted earlier in last week in reaction to the second abduction of a foreign national from the resort city of Lamu were still active.
Tourism, tea and horticulture are Kenya's leading foreign exchange earners.
 The travel embargoes instituted by various missions in Nairobi including the French and UK embassies  which advised against all but essential personnel travel for their own staff and citizens particularly to the area between Kenya and the Somali border.
 This covers the entire coastline well beyond Lamu.
 "This advice has been reviewed and reissued with amendments to the Travel Summary and the Safety and Security, Terrorism, Crime and Local Travel sections. The overall level of the advice has changed and we now advise against all but essential travel to coastal areas within 150km of the Kenya-Somalia border. This includes the Lamu area," noted one updated such travel alert on the Nairobi British High Commission website.
"We also advise against all but essential travel to low income areas of Nairobi, including all township or slum areas."
 The travel bans are expected to particularly affect tourism stakeholders in the coastal region including the airlines flying regular services from Nairobi and Mombasa. Scheduled flights are expected to be hit.
 Hotels and resorts, in Lamu and the area now under travel embargo also fear the move may have potentially crippling repercussions for their businesses.
Occupancies in such resorts and hotels will fall and it could ruin them financially.
 Early last week the tourism ministry dismissed the foreign travel advisories with Kenyan tourism minister  Najib Balala urging tourists who wish to travel to Kenya to ignore the advisories.
 And later on Monday the Government moved to make further reassurances to the tourism industry that it would offer adequate security in the Coastal area.
 Mr. Balala made a passionate plea to hotel owners not to close shop saying it would cause panic and collapse of the tourism industry.  His counterpart Internal Security minister George Saitoti warned that the government would not entertain activities of the al-Shabaab militia accused of abducting tourists.
 "Additional security officers and vehicles have been deployed to police stations in the coastal areas to enhance the operational capacity of security officers. Aerial surveillance has been and will be sustained on a 24-hour basis," said Saitoti.
 But tourism stakeholders who spoke on condition of anonymity due sensitivity of the matter noted that the second incident has raised fears that not enough is being done by Kenyan security agencies to secure visitor safety along this more remote part of Kenya.
 They noted that tour operators are quick to follow any travel embargoes issued by foreign missions because they fear to be held liable in case any such incidents happen.
 Lamu from where Judith Tebutt, a Briton was kidnapped three weeks ago by gunmen who shot dead her husband is a major tourism attraction for foreign visitors. Kenya was on course to reach record arrival figures and revenues from tourism and occupancies on flights and in hotels, resorts and safari lodges but are worried that the incidents might derail this.