How safe is travel to Kenya?
Cape Town – Kenya’s coastal town Mombasa and the area north of it, towards the Southern Somali border, continue to experience difficulties, says local Safari travel experts Go2Africa.
“For the several years now, the travel advisory for Kenya has recommended that travellers avoid this area, which echoes the travel recommendations from our team in Kenya,” said Go2Africa product manager Liesel van Zyl.
As several countries, including Britain, Australia and France have stepped up their warnings following a wave of attacks and unrest linked to Islamist extremists, the Kenya’s tourism industry decried the warnings and the impact it would have as avoiding Mombasa complicates travel to nearby beach resorts.
While Violence and political instability form the back drop to a number of Africa tourism destinations including Kenya, Van Zyl said it was important to know that Mombasa and its surrounds are far from other key tourist attractions like the Masai Mara, Mount Kenya and Amboseli.
“It is also far from other East Africa destinations like Tanzania’s Serengeti and Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable Forest.
“The troubles in the area stem from specific political unrest in Southern Somalia, and while we exclude this area from our itineraries entirely, we most definitely continue to recommend Kenya as a superb safari destination in Africa, one that should remain firmly on every traveller’s Top 10 bucket list,” said Van Zyl.
Britain’s Foreign Office on Wednesday became the latest to warn against “all but essential travel to Mombasa”, as British travel agency Thompsons prepared on Thursday to evacuate hundreds of tourists.
Last month Kenya confirmed that the number of foreign visitors to the country had slumped by 11 percent in 2013, as fears of election-related political violence gripped the country.
Kenya’s foreign ministry has since called these foreign nations’ travel advisories “unfriendly acts”, saying it would only increase panic and play into the hands of those behind the gun and grenade assaults.