The Association of British Tour Operators (ABTA) has moved to assure UK tourists that Kenya is a safe holiday destination in the wake of the attack on two Britons at Kiwayu Safari Village early on Sunday morning.
Amid mounting concern from tour operators that the intense publicity given to the shooting of David Tebbutt, 58, a finance director at the UK publishers Faber & Faber and the seizure of his deaf wife Judith, 56, is beginning to have a negative affect on tourist inquiries, ABTA has released a statement in an attempt to quell fears.
It said: “Kenya is generally a safe and hospitable country which attracts thousands of UK holidaymakers.”
Angie Sloan, the Kenya Tourist Board’s director for the UK and Ireland, said that while it was understandable that holidaymakers are worried following the news, Kiwayu was in a remote location far away from most tourist areas.
More than a million tourists visit Kenya every year, more of them from the UK. More 164,000 Britons visited in 2009 and the numbers have been rising steadily since. Tourism earned Kenya a record Sh74 billion in 2010.
