Kenya has, starting midnight of February 6, 2015, banned Tanzania registered tour vans from accessing its airports, national parks and other tourists sites in line with the 1985 bilateral tourism agreement.

Cabinet Secretary for East African Affairs, Commerce and Tourism Phyllis Kandie made the announcement in Nairobi after a meeting of the EAC Sectoral Council on Tourism and Wildlife Management in Arusha last week resolved that until an amicable and long term solution is reached, the two countries should stick to the tourism co-operation agreement signed in 1985 that only allows local operators to access ports and tourist sites.

Under the agreement, businesses such as airport transfers are not allowed across borders. Tanzania has since 1985 enforced this regulation by barring Kenya registered tour vans from entering the country, while Kenya did not reciprocate.

The announcement by Kenya means that tourists coming through either of the two countries will be transported in and out of that country through designated border posts and handed over to tour firms from the other country. Although the process does not come at an extra cost for the tour operators, they find it cumbersome and worry about the quality of hospitality accorded to the tourists after the handover.

READ: EAC wants Kenya, Tanzania tour van dispute resolved

This means that all Tanzania-registered tour firms will be required to partner with Kenyan tour operators to pick up and drop tourists from the airports and transport them to tourist sites as per the agreement.

According to data from the Tanzania Association of Tourist Operators, 400,000 tourists which is about 40 per cent of all tourists entering Tanzania annually come through Kenya, with 250,000 arriving through the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

Since 2010, tour operators in Kenya have been complaining to the government that allowing Tanzanian tour operators to drop and pick up tourists from the JKIA was unfair since Kenyan tour operators are not accorded the same courtesy in Tanzania.
Tanzania’s Tourism Act 2008 stipulates that foreign registered tour vans are not allowed entry into tourist sites. This law applies even to tour vans from EAC parter states.

On December 22 Kenya banned Tanzania-registered tour vans from dropping or picking up tourists at JKIA but rescinded the decision on January 16 after Tanzania’s Minister for Tourism Lazaro Nyalandu appealed and asked for three weeks to convene a meeting to discuss the matter.

Ms Kandie said the three-week window had elapsed. “The meeting to discuss these issues has not taken place,” she said. “Those three weeks have now expired without our Tanzanian counterparts convening the meeting for the negotiations,” she noted.

Reacting to the government’s decision, Kenya Association of Tour Operators chief executive Fred Kaigwa said that Kenyan tour operators have no problem with the decision passed by the ministers as long as the agreement is being fully implemented in the meantime.

“What we would object is where one party wants to violet the agreement while upholding it in their country,” said Mr Kaigwa. “Fair play to us is that no party has undue advantage over the other,” he added.