Investment Procedures and Opportunities

The Wildlife Management Act empowers the Director, KWS to develop or authorize private sector investors to develop facilities and infrastructure within the parks to facilitate tourism activities and secure financial returns from the protected areas.  For this purpose, the Director may let sites for the erection of hotels or other accommodation facilities in the Parks. Establishment and operation of such facilities is to be done in a manner not prejudicial to proper wildlife management. 

Our parks and reserves remain the main attraction for most of the tourists visiting Kenya. Over 70% of all foreign tourists to Kenya rank wildlife as their primary attraction and undertake wildlife and nature tourism.  In the past four years, we received an average of 625,205 non resident visitors annually.  With our concerted marketing campaigns, we expect this number to grow by 5% annually in the coming years.  We expect that our product development initiatives will improve average length of stay from the current 3 days to 5 days.   Domestically, citizen and residents constitute an important 62% of our annually visitation. This market provides a buffer in the low seasons. We aim to maintain and grow this segment by providing quality and yet affordable accommodation options in the parks.    

We wish to aggressively involve the private sector in utilizing the parks tourism potential by optimizing their capacity for tourist accommodation and other facilities. In line with Vision 2030, the country’s economic development blue print, we will participate in providing the required additional beds by developing high end tourist accommodation facilities in our parks through public private partnerships. We give special consideration to development of tourist infrastructure in the less visited yet scenic parks and reserves.

In line with the Public Procurement and Disposal (Public Private Partnership) Regulations 2008 and our Tourist Facilities Development Procedures, we identify and select developers though a competitive and open procedure:

  

Approximate Time (Months)

 

Activity

Time in

Weeks

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

5th

6th

7th

8th

 

Prospectus

4

        

 

Public Advertisement for Expression of Interest

3

        

 

Pre Qualification of Developers

2

        

 

Submission of Detailed Proposal 

3

        

 

Evaluation of Detailed Proposals

2

        

 

Selection and Notification of Selected Investor

2

        

 

Institution of EIA

8

        

 

Submission of Architectural plans

2

        

 

Approval of Architectural plans

2

        

 

EIA Certification

2

         

Site Handover and Commencement of Works

1 day

        

 

Developers awarded leases for development of new sites or rehabilitation of existing facilities are required to:

  • Seek authorization from the National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA)
  • Acquire other requisite statutory licensees for operation of hotels and restaurant (Hotels and Restaurants Act (Cap.494))

Advantages of Kenya as a foreign investment destination:

  • A relatively large pool of skilled English speaking able and enterprising workers,
  • Central location in the region with a coastline and a port,
  • Stable Pro-Investment Government,
  • Strategic location as a Regional Financial, communication and transportation hub.
  • Fully liberalized economy,
  • Well established local and foreign private sector and political stability

 

There are currently no specific sector based investment incentives targeted at Tourism, however the following may apply to investment in tourism including tourism development in Protected Area:

  • Against expropriation of private property - Constitution of Kenya
  • Repatriation of capital, profits and interests
  • Insurance on foreign investments against non-commercial - Multi-lateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA).
  • Arbitration cases between foreign investors and host governments -International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID)
  • Insurance against political risk - Africa Trade Insurance Agency (ATIA)