East Africa’s tourism sector has been hit hard by the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, even though the two regions are thousands of kilometres apart.

Netherlands-based travel firm SafariBookings.com carried out a study in August that found that half of the 500 safari tour operators surveyed on the continent were receiving fewer bookings due to fears of Ebola, with the impact being felt more in East Africa than in Southern Africa.

Only a third of the agents reported business as usual.

The report reveals that tourists abroad view Africa as a single country, and do not realise that East and Southern Africa, which receive the majority of tourists, are just as far from the outbreak area as Europe or South America.

READ: Ebola fears hurt east Africa's tourism

Tourist arrivals in East Africa, especially Kenya and Uganda, have nosedived in the past two years due to travel advisories issued by the Western countries over terrorism threats and now Ebola.

Struck out law

In Uganda, the passing of the nullified anti-homosexuality law also affected the sector. But Uganda’s Constitutional Court struck out the law in August, six months after President Yoweri Museveni signed it, on the grounds that parliament had passed it without quorum.

“Any concerns about contracting Ebola on safari reflect the widespread misconception that Africa is one homogenous country… the current outbreak is largely confined to a region that is closer to Europe than it is to most of the popular safari destinations,” said Philip Briggs, a member of the Safari Bookings Panel of Experts.

“Furthermore, the disease can be contracted only through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person. Statistically, this means that the chances of contracting Ebola on safari are effectively zero.”

Tour operators say the manner in which Western media are covering Ebola has scared potential safari-goers to East and Southern Africa, although the outbreak is in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.

Ebola is not airborne

Since the outbreak of the deadly virus in March, nearly 5,000 people out of about 14,000 infected have died, most of them in Liberia, according to the World Health Organisation.

East Africa has not been affected by the disease, and leading health agencies such as WHO and the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention have reiterated that Ebola is not airborne. But such messages have fallen on deaf ears, and thousands of leisure and business travellers who were planning or considering travel to Africa have postponed or cancelled.

In Uganda, tourism-related agencies say arrivals have dropped. Kenya has seen tourist arrivals through its two main airports, Jomo Kenyatta and Moi, drop 13.6 per cent in the first half of the year, to 428,223, as foreigners shunned the country citing fears of terror attacks orchestrated by the Somali militant group Al Shabaab.

A WHO warning in August that Kenya was a “high-risk” country for Ebola saw Korean Air, which had three flights a week to Nairobi, suspend flights indefinitely.

The country’s Indian Ocean beaches have been deserted and high-end safari operators report sluggish business.

Reports say that Kenyan and Tanzanian hotels have reported a 20 per cent and 30 per cent drop in business respectively, while 2015 bookings have plummeted 50 per cent.

But tour operators in the region are hopeful that the situation will improve in the coming months, following aggressive marketing campaigns in the region and farther abroad.

READ: Dar’s marketing plan to boost tourism

Derick Waiswa, managing director of Kuamka Tours and Travel, said whereas tourist arrivals have dropped in Uganda, there are signs of recovery, thanks to the marketing of the region’s tourist destinations globally.

Joint marketing

“We are hopeful that the situation will change and business will improve, now that we are jointly marketing our region’s tourism,” Mr Waiswa said.

Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda are marketing the region’s tourist destinations jointly, following the introduction of a single tourist visa in February.

Kelly MacTavish-Mungar, executive director at Pearl of Africa Tours, said the sector is showing signs of recovery across the region, and some tourists are willing to visit starting January 2015.