The Potential for Cruise Tourism in Kenya

Today, cruise tourism is the fastest developing one in the travel and tourism industry. Yet, it is a neglected area with limited coverage in contemporary tourism literature. Cruise tourism has been concentrated in the Caribbean and the Mediterranean regions. However, operators in these regions are now facing stiff competition and are looking for alternative and more exciting destinations. The Kenyan coast and the rest of the Eastern African Coast provide such possible alternative destinations. The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the potential for cruise tourism in Kenya. The paper is intended to provide valuable information to operators willing to develop cruise tourism in the region. It relies heavily on interviews, library research and personal observations in the field. In this paper, cruise tourism is considered as a system and Leiper's Tourism System Model is used as the main theoretical framework. The model helps in the understanding of various elements involved in cruise tourism. SWOT analysis is used to discuss the current situation in the industry. From the discussion, it is apparent that a lot of potential for cruise tourism exists in the study area.