Kenyan resorts struggle without departed British tourists after bombings
by Kai Tabacek - ITV News - last updated Thu 22 May 2014
World Kenya

A deserted hotel on Diani beach near Mombasa. Photo: ITV News/Kai Tabacek
Just a week after the Foreign Office warned against all but essential
travel to parts of coastal Kenya, British tourists have become a
something of a rarity here.
Holidaying Britons, many of them travelling on packages with Thomson
and First Choice, are a common feature in this part of Kenya.
But since Thursday, hundreds of them have been repatriated by their
tour operators after a
travel advisory warned of a "high threat from terrorism, including kidnapping".
It follows a series of fatal and attempted bombings in Mombasa and
Nairobi, which Kenyan authorities have linked to al-Shabaab militants
in neighbouring Somalia.
Read: Hundreds of Brits leave Kenya after deadly bombings
The deserted beaches and vacant loungers on Diani Beach, a popular
destination just south of Mombasa, point to the recent evacuation.
Although this part of the coast was not included in the Foreign Office
advisory, many tourists were left with no choice as their charter
flights were cancelled.
The manager of Diani Sea Resort said he was hosting 140 Britons last
week, accounting for almost 90 percent of all hotel guests. He said
they all disappeared practically overnight when the travel advisory
was issued.
"Some of them were crying - they were very disappointed," Kifalu
Samson Masha told me. "If nothing happens … [until charter flights are
resumed in November] many people are going lose their jobs, perhaps
including me".

British tourists queue at the departure gate as they are evacuated
from Mombasa. Credit: Reuters/Joseph Okanga
I walked the entire length of Diani's palm-fringed beach this week.
The string of luxury resorts and beach bars are normally bustling, but
I encountered less than a dozen Europeans, only three of them Britons.
One of them was Mariamme Matthews from Ainsbury in Wiltshire. Just two
months in to a year-long volunteer placement at a monkey sanctuary,
she said she plans to stay. But her parents had been planning to come
out on a Thomson holiday in July. "That's no longer on the cards," she
added.
A woman on duty in the reception of a backpackers hostel looked
shocked when she heard I was from the UK. "I thought everybody had
left," she explained.
Hamese, one of the so-called beach boys who roam the sand selling
local handicrafts, has taken to scavenging firewood to sell since the
tourists left. "The life is very hard here. We depend on tourists," he
added.
British holidaymakers normally keep the tourism industry alive during
the rainy season in May and June, according to Betty, a park ranger at
the Shimba Hills National Reserve. "Brits know how to do holidays,"
she added with a grin, as she mimed taking bank notes from a wallet.
The Foreign Office has since issued a clarification, explaining that
it "does not enforce its travel advice" and that it is "for
individuals and travel companies to make their own decisions".
Many foreign tourists left Kenya after a series of bombs in Nairobi
and Mombasa. Credit: ITV News/Kai Tabacek David and Elaine Pollock,
British tourists from Whitstable in Kent, said they were not
travelling with a tour operator "so we can make up our own minds
[about security] on a day-by-day basis".
"We have spent a good portion of our time outside the danger zone," David added.
But while the absence of Britons is already keenly felt, the real test
will come in July and August when the high season begins, bringing a
vital influx of tourists.
One of Kenya's leading dailies, The Daily Nation, reported this week
that at least 4,000 workers have already been laid off in the coastal
region. If the threat of terrorism casts its long shadow over the high
season as well, the impact is likely to be far worse.
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