KENYA: Kenya Expects 100,000 Chinese Tourists In 2016

Kenya, the capital of Safari, expects 100,000 Chinese tourists in 2016, a commercial counsellor from the Embassy of Kenya in China said on Friday.

China is currently Kenya's second largest source of tourists from Asia following India with more than 40,000 tourists visiting the country every year, said commercial counsellor Vincent E. Omuse at a tourism promotion fair in Beijing.

The east Africa's biggest economy expect the number to grow to 100,000 in 2016, he said.

Some 12 percent of gross domestic product and 70 percent of foreign exchange revenues of Kenya come from tourism, said Zhang Shigang, the China Office Coordinator of the United Nations Environment Program, which is headquartered in Nairobi, capital of Kenya.

The Guangzhou-Nairobi direct air route, which is expected to open on Aug. 5, will greatly boost the tourism and cultural exchanges between the two countries, said Zhang.

More than 90 percent of the seats in the maiden flight have been booked, according to Li Dongliang, head of the Sales Department of the China Southern Airlines, the operator of the route.