Market Report, "Kenya Tourism Report Q2 2013", published

* This quarter BMI has revised and restructured its tourism reports, incorporating a greater range of data and focusing on the hotel industry, the value of the tourism industry itself, and the impact of macroeconomic factors.

The Kenya Tourism Report examines the significant long-term potential being offered by the local tourism industry, but also flags up short-term concerns about the risk of renewed ethnic tensions around the time of the March 2013 presidential and parliamentary elections. The country also still needs to invest heavily to improve infrastructure and service standards across the industry.

For the immediate term, although BMI believes the forthcoming Kenyan elections will proceed relatively peacefully, we would want to highlight several security problems, including rising Islamic extremism, interreligious tensions, ethnic cleavages and the authorities' response to rising secessionist tendencies, that could provide the basis for instability before, during or after the vote. We believe Nairobi and the Coastal and Northeastern provinces are particularly significant risk areas over the next quarter or so.

------------------------------------------------------------
Full Report Details at
- http://www.fastmr.com/prod/554093_kenya_tourism_report_q2_2013.aspx?afid=301
------------------------------------------------------------

However, once this short-term political instability subsides, BMI remains optimistic about the longer-term outlook for Kenyan tourism over 2013-2017. We forecast that there will continue to be strong growth in arrivals from new markets such as India and China, which will more than offset declines in arrivals from traditional source markets, such as France. BMI now forecasts Kenya to be welcoming more than 2mn tourists by 2017.

As of early February 2013, when this report was being compiled, there had been no release of official tourist arrival figures for 2012. According to figures released by the Ministry of Tourism in September 2012, tourist arrivals stood at 564,835 for H112, up by 2.9% y-o-y. As of end-H112, the UK accounted for 14.8% of all arrivals by air and sea, followed by the US (10.6%), Italy (6.7%), India (5.2%) and Germany (5.1%).

For 2013, BMI is targeting a 3% increase in tourist arrivals, to reach 1.74mn.

* BMI believes that the number of hotels and other accommodation establishments in Kenya will continue to increase across our newly-extended forecast period to 2017. Despite short-term political uncertainty, the country is still perceived as offering extremely attractive investment opportunities for hotel groups and other tourist-related industries - largely due to rising domestic tourism and regional tourism, supported by an increase in higher disposable incomes.
* Among new hotel openings scheduled for the coming two years are two Rezidor Hotel Group properties (one Park Inn and one Radisson Blu), the 200-room Villa Rosa Kempinski Hotel Nairobi and the 96- room Best Western Hurlingham.
* French hotel chain Accor is also considering building a new property in Nairobi, according to the company's website.

About Fast Market Research

Fast Market Research is an online aggregator and distributor of market research and business information. We represent the world's top research publishers and analysts and provide quick and easy access to the best competitive intelligence available.

For more information about these or related research reports, please visit our website at http://www.fastmr.com or call us at 1.800.844.8156.

You may also be interested in these related reports:

- Croatia Tourism Report Q2 2013
- Caribbean Tourism Report Q2 2013
- Czech Republic Tourism Report Q2 2013
- Japan Tourism Report Q2 2013
- Oman Tourism Report Q2 2013