Visitors from West Africa have emerged as the highest-spending tourists on accommodation in Kenya, outperforming travellers from traditionally lucrative Western markets such as the United Kingdom (UK), Canada, and the United States.<\/p>\n
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According to data compiled from Kenya National Bureau of Statistics tourism surveys and reported by The Business Daily<\/em>, West African visitors lead the pack with an average daily accommodation spend of Sh10 410 ($80).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The figures highlight a notable shift in tourism demographics, with continental travellers making a significantly larger financial footprint per day on lodging than many of their international counterparts.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n North African travellers followed closely behind at Sh8 600 ($66) per day, while visitors grouped under East and Central Africa averaged Sh8 500 ($65). Middle Eastern and Japanese tourists tied for fourth place, each shelling out an average of Sh8 200 ($63) daily for a place to stay.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n European and North American markets recorded surprisingly lower daily accommodation expenditures. French and Swiss tourists averaged Sh7 800 ($60) per day, followed by India at Sh7 100 ($55) and other Asian markets at Sh4 100 ($32).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Meanwhile, travellers from the UK averaged a modest Sh1 700 ($13) daily, with Canada and Australia recording Sh1 300 ($10) each, and other American markets rounding out the lower end at Sh1 200 ($9).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Industry analysts point out that these metrics offer critical insights for hospitality providers and policymakers aiming to realign marketing strategies towards high-yield tourism markets across the continent.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n –ChannelAfrica–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":48169,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[78,44],"class_list":["post-48168","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"West African tourists lead accommodation spending in Kenya","published_date":"2026-10-16 09:07:02","news_description":"West African tourists lead accommodation spending in Kenya","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/48168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/48168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48171,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/48168\/revisions\/48171"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=48168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}