Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Encyclopedia of Tourism pp 1–3Cite as

Kenya, tourism

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:

  • 78 Accesses

Located in East Africa (Figure 1), the Republic of Kenya has an estimated population of 42 million and has English and Kiswahili as its official languages. Kenya is one of the poorest countries in the world and agriculture is the mainstay of the economy. Tourism is also an important industry in its national economy and a major foreign exchange earner, contributing approximately 10 % to GDP, 10–12 % of total wage employment, and 19.2 % of export earnings (Kenya 2013). The country is the seventh most popular destination in Africa (UNWTO 2013) and is known for ecotourism which features a game safari and viewing of wildlife in pristine natural environments. About 10 % of the country has been set aside for wildlife conservation and promotion of tourism; however, human-wildlife conflicts and poaching are major challenges.

Figure 1
figure 1

Map of Kenya (Ondicho 2010)

Full size image

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

References

  • Kenya 2013 National Tourism Strategy 2013-2018. Nairobi: Department of Tourism, Government of Kenya.

    Google Scholar 

  • KNBS 2013 Kenya Sectoral Data. Nairobi: Government Printer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ondicho, T. G. 2010 Tourism, power and politics: the challenges of maasai involvement in tourism development. Unpublished PhD Dissertation, Massey University, New Zealand.

    Google Scholar 

  • UNWTO 2013 Tourism Highlights. Madrid: World Tourism Organization.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Anthropology, Gender and African Studies, University of Nairobi, 00100, 30197, Nairobi, Kenya

    Tom G. Ondicho

Authors
  1. Tom G. Ondicho
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tom G. Ondicho .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Hospitality Leadership, University of Wisconsin-Stout, Menomonie, Wisconsin, USA

    Jafar Jafari

  2. School of Hotel and Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR

    Honggen Xiao

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

About this entry

Cite this entry

Ondicho, T.G. (2015). Kenya, tourism. In: Jafari, J., Xiao, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Tourism. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01669-6_478-1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01669-6_478-1

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-01669-6

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Business and ManagementReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation