Travel group urges Kenya to reassure future tourists after deadly attack

Tourism has been on a steady rise in Kenya in the last decade. But analysts fear that might change following last week’s attack on an upscale Nairobi mall by the Somali armed group Al-Shabab that has left 67 civilians and security personnel dead.

Given the attack, the head of the World Travel and Tourism Council on Tuesday urged the Kenyan government and tour operators to reassure potential visitors about coming to the country. Otherwise, he said, people could think Kenya is no longer a safe place to visit.

Tourism is currently a cornerstone of the Kenyan economy. The billion-dollar tourism industry accounts for 12.5 percent of the economy and provides one in 10 jobs.

"The government in Kenya and the private sector need to communicate very clearly ... that it is a specific incident in one shopping mall in Nairobi that is now contained," David Scowsill, head of the WTTC, a global forum for business leaders in the industry, told Agence France Press.

"It has no impact on the wider travel and tourism in Kenya, most of which is outside the main city," Scowsill added.

Kenya is East Africa's richest country, but more than half of its population still lives on less than one dollar a day.

The country has been rocked by several drops in tourism in the past. The industry suffered a blow after a car bomb attack in 1998 in Nairobi that left 213 dead. Keny also experienced a dip in tourism in 2008 when ethnic violence wracked the country after disputed presidential elections.

Scowsill said that a drop in tourism is likely after last week's attack, but he doesn’t believe the effect will be permanent.

"With these kinds of incidents, it does take a dip, typically for two or three months, then it starts to return again," he said. "I would expect within six months, it will be absolutely back to normal again, assuming all the communications are right and of course there is no further incident."

Al Jazeera and wire services