My blog posts and external op-eds/articles on business-related topics
Kenya’s next tourism growth story may be written in conference halls. Nairobi is expanding its infrastructure and global reach, Mombasa has added major convention capacity, and Naivasha, Nakuru and Kisumu are opening new fronts. Around them sits a wider investment opportunity spanning hotels, transport, technology, talent and destination experiences.
Africa is now the world’s fastest-growing tourism region, but it remains deeply under-visited relative to its population. Behind that gap lies one of the continent’s greatest opportunities: massive investment, tens of millions of jobs and a new global narrative shaped by travellers experiencing Africa for themselves.
Africa’s hotel investment pipeline is booming, but growth is concentrated. The real winners will be the markets that convert promising pipelines into high-performing hotels.
For too long, African cities were treated as gateways to safaris, beaches, and heritage sites. That story is changing fast. From Nairobi’s food, nightlife, conferences, and outdoor escapes to Lagos, Accra, Dakar, Marrakech, Stone Town, and beyond, urban Africa is becoming a destination in its own right.
Zanzibar is not outclassing Kenya as a whole. But in focused leisure tourism, it is pulling ahead of the Kenya Coast. Kenya has the beaches, food, history, Swahili heritage, resorts, and location. What it needs now is a sharper coastal strategy, stronger branding, better infrastructure, and a serious push to make the Swahili Coast visible to the world.
As a strong signal around where the project is heading, the launch also picked up media coverage. KBC and KTN aired stories on the project and the show house reveal, while Citizen covered Silva Gigiri in its digital news edition.
The Africa Forward Summit in Nairobi was an unambiguous example of how Africa-Europe relations have moved firmly into the post-aid era. “Trade, not aid” has been around as a slogan for decades. In Nairobi, it became the actual agenda: trade, investment, infrastructure, financing, and partnership. Co-hosted by Kenya and France on 11–12 May 2026, the…
Africa’s tourism boom is real. In 2025, the continent was the world’s fastest-growing tourism region, with arrivals up about 8% to roughly 81 million visitors. This is no longer just recovery. It is growth. The demand is there. But African destinations are still making it too hard to capture. The continent has the product: wildlife,…
Africa’s beaches can compete with the best in the world, but global rankings rarely show it. The problem is not the coastline. It is visibility, positioning, and marketing power.
JKIA once had a stronger claim as East Africa’s leading aviation hub, but regional competition is moving fast. Addis Ababa has expanded aggressively, Kigali is building for the future, and Nairobi risks slipping behind. Reviving the Greenfield Terminal and reconsidering a second runway would not just upgrade an airport. It would strengthen Kenya’s tourism, trade, airline connectivity, and wider economic position.
