Fact-checking cabinet minister about tourism’s value to Kenyan economy

Kenya’s tourism industry has, like that of many other countries, had a horror year, with some official projections estimating losses could reach as much as KSh13.5 billion (US$125 million).

Describing the industry as “on its knees”, tourism minister Najib Balala on World Tourism Day in September 2020 called for more investment.

Restrictions put in place in the country due to the Covid-19 pandemic have been gradually rolled back, with international flights resuming on 1 August.

As the country works to rebuild tourism, we fact-checked two significant claims made by Balala in May 2020 about its value to the country.

The claim was published on the minister’s official Twitter and Facebook accounts, and was greeted with incredulity from a prominent economist.

We reached out to the minister to ask for the source of these figures and will update this report should he respond.

For data on how different sectors contribute to Kenya’s economy, John Kinuthia directed us to the annual economic survey from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics. Kinuthia is a senior programme officer at the International Budget Partnership, a public finance thinktank.

The data from the statistics office shows that in 2019, the biggest contribution to Kenya’s gross domestic product, or GDP, was by agriculture.

“Agriculture remained the dominant sector, accounting for slightly over a third of the total value of the economy,” the agency said in the 2020 edition of the survey.

The growing of crops contributed 27.8% to GDP. When animal production, agriculture support services, fishing, forestry and logging were also considered, this share rose to 34.1%.

The data showed other key contributors were transport and storage (8.5%), wholesale and retail trade (7.6%) and manufacturing at 7.5%.

But the survey does not have data on the GDP contribution of tourism, Kinuthia noted. Africa Check asked the statistics office why this was the case.

The bureau had no data on tourism’s contribution because it “cuts across many sectors”, Collins Omondi, the acting director general, said.

This included accommodation, air travel, transport and the service industry. Only a tourism satellite account would accurately show the contribution of tourism to the GDP, Omondi said, adding that Kenya’s Tourism Research Institute was working on capturing this data. Local media have also reported this.

A satellite account is a widely accepted and comprehensive measure of tourism’s economic value.

Most sources estimate tourism’s contribution to GDP below 10%

Other data sources however suggest tourism makes a far smaller contribution to the Kenyan economy. These include:

• Between 0.7 and 0.8%, according to a June 2020 reportfrom the planning department in the treasury. This covered 2016 to 2019. The data however appears to use the gross value added in accommodation and food services as a proxy for tourism.
• An average of 10.9%between 2011 and 2014, according to a 2017 report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
• 10%, according toa 2018-2022 tourism sector plan from the tourism ministry.
• 9%, according to a May 2020 national tourism policy draft.

One of the more detailed estimates is from the World Travel and Tourism Council, a London-based non-profit organisation that represents the private sector. In a March 2020 factsheet, it gave the contribution of tourism and travel to Kenya’s GDP as 8.2%, citing the UN and national sources.

This estimate is also used in an undated World Bank report assessing tourism’s contribution to the Kenyan economy. But the report says the figure may give a “partial picture” as it “neglect[s] impacts of backward and forward multipliers as well as dynamic effects on economic structure”.

Available evidence does not support minister’s claim

We asked the international tourism council how it calculated the estimate on Kenya. It sent us its methodology, which showed it considered the direct, indirect and “induced” contribution of tourism to the GDP.

This spanned accommodation, food, transport, cultural and sports services. For indirect contributions, it included “all public and private investments” in tourism such as infrastructure, marketing, aviation and security.

In countries where there were data gaps, the organisation said these were filled by “supplementing data with estimates derived from the typical relationship between the missing information and other economic and travel and tourism indicators”. (Read the full report here.)

While only a tourism satellite account would give a definitive estimate of tourism’s contribution to GDP, there is no evidence to support minister Balala’s figure of 24%.

We therefore rate his claim as incorrect.

This message is brought to you by Sky Fm in collaboration with Code For Africas’iLab Data Journalism Program supported by DW Akademie