Reimagining Kenyan Tourism: It starts with becoming a tourist yourself

In Kenya, when the average young entrepreneur thinks about tourism, one image dominates: a 4×4 safari vehicle ferrying foreign tourists to luxury lodges.

It’s a model that is visibly successful safari drives in national parks, five-star accommodations, and photo ops with elephants at sunset.

But beneath the glamour lies a sobering truth: this version of tourism is expensive, narrow, and financially inaccessible to most Kenyans.

It’s also often foreign-owned, limiting local participation and benefits.

This singular narrative has shaped the perception and implementation of tourism.

Yet, real opportunity lies not in imitating high-end safaris, but in broadening our view of what tourism can be starting with a shift in mindset: Kenyans becoming tourists themselves.

Across the country, the dominant image of tourism is one that is externally driven and luxury-oriented.

We see tourists on roads in well-branded Land Cruisers, ushered into high-end lodges, insulated from local realities.

The sheer visibility of this model convinces many aspiring entrepreneurs that success in tourism must follow the same formula.

However, this path is capital-intensive, seasonal, and ultimately out of reach for many.

Moreover, the financial returns of this elite model don’t trickle down to local communities.

Tour operators, luxury lodge chains, and imported goods account for the majority of the revenue.

Local economies may see minimal benefits, often only through token community social responsibility (CSR) projects.

The result is an industry that looks prosperous from the outside but is fragile and exclusionary from within.

What’s striking is that many Kenyans have never travelled domestically, let alone experienced the kind of travel that informs good tourism design.

There is a pervasive assumption that travel is only for the wealthy, and tourism is something done by others, especially foreigners.

This gap in lived experience limits imagination.

When you’ve never stayed in a local guesthouse, hiked a trail, visited an obscure museum, or shared a meal in a homestay, it’s hard to see those experiences as valuable, let alone marketable, to foreigners.

And yet, many visitors are looking for precisely that, not luxury, but connection.

Travellers who skip the lodge in favour of homestays, who choose food tours over buffets, and who want to learn something, not just see it.

The problem isn’t demand. It’s visibility. These experiences don’t make it onto glossy brochures, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t wanted or worth building.

The reality is that Kenya’s tourism landscape is rich and diverse, but much of it remains invisible because it falls outside the conventional 5-star frame.

Kenya is filled with untapped tourism gems. Take Iten, a small town globally revered among long-distance runners, yet barely recognised beyond the athletic niche.

Or Turkana, a dramatic desert landscape too often dismissed as harsh and uninviting.

Closer to Nairobi, Sagana offers a budding adventure-sports scene that could rival international destinations, yet remains largely overlooked, except for weekend rafting.

Cultural and historical sites are similarly under-explored.

Places like the Kapenguria Museum, Oltepesi, Thimlich Ohinga a UNESCO World Heritage site and simply Maralal, famous not only as a gateway to northern Kenya but also as the town where the colonial administration detained Jomo Kenyatta before his release, giving it a unique place in the nation’s political memory.

All these are integral to Kenya’s national story, yet suffer from low local and international visitation.

These are not just tourism products waiting to be marketed; they are storytelling opportunities waiting to be discovered.

New tourism experiences can also be designed from scratch.

Imagine a Swahili immersion course in Mombasa, like popular language-tourism programs in Spain or Argentina.

Picture travelers staying in local homes, learning to cook coastal dishes, and practicing Kiswahili through daily interactions, not as outsiders in luxury hotels, but as engaged visitors immersed in culture.

These ideas don’t require millions in investment, just creativity, insight, and local participation.

Imagine the sun rising over Lake Victoria, casting shimmering gold across the tranquil waters as the lakeside towns come alive with the scent of smoking tilapia and the sound of laughter.

Here, local communities reinvent tourism with annual fish festivals, a celebration not just of abundance, but of culture and tradition.

Stalls line the shores, each one a culinary showcase: smoked mbuta prepared the way grandmothers did, deep-fried omena with hot pepper, stews simmered in clay pots, and millet bread warm from the hearth.

Storytellers recount lake legends as visitors sample dishes rarely seen beyond family kitchens.

Children join in music and dance, while elders demonstrate age-old techniques such as net weaving and boat building.

Through these festivals, the lake’s bounty is revealed in its full diversity, turning everyday recipes into shared heritage.

Local chefs, fishers, and artists serve as cultural ambassadors, inviting Kenyans from every county to experience, learn, and celebrate by the water’s edge.

Such gatherings do more than entertain; they connect people to place, turning domestic travel into a journey of rediscovery and pride.

Many tourism ventures fail not from a lack of effort or intelligence, but from a lack of exposure. Entrepreneurs try to design for tourists they’ve never been.

Without experiencing the product firsthand, how can you know if it’s too expensive, too basic, too generic, or too ambitious?

This isn’t unique to tourism. A fashion designer may get tailoring right, but miss the aesthetics needed for a corporate look.

A chef may dream of opening a fine-dining restaurant but has never eaten in one.

A skincare entrepreneur may craft a product with natural ingredients but miss the subtle branding cues that high-end clients expect.

Without exposure to quality, you can’t recreate it. Without knowing what excellence looks and feels like, you can’t compete.

The fix? Travel. Not luxury travel or Instagram travel. Just simple, curious, deliberate travel.

Go where you’ve never gone. Sleep in guesthouses that cost under KSh 1,000. Visit museums and heritage sites off the beaten track.

Taste street food in a town you don’t know. Attend a craft workshop. Hike in a new region. Ask locals about what they love about their hometown.

Through this lens, places transform. That dusty town becomes a canvas for photography enthusiasts to explore.

That roadside café becomes a stop on a food-tasting tour. That quiet village festival becomes a calendar event for culture enthusiasts.

You notice what’s missing/ storytelling, booking platforms, and packages. You see what could be improved: access, cleanliness.

And most importantly, you realise that tourism can be affordable, community-based, and incredibly diverse.

True tourism isn’t about copying what we see foreign tourists do—it’s about sharing what is meaningful in ways others can experience.

It begins not with infrastructure, but with insight.

That insight comes from living the experience. Once you’ve been a tourist in your own country, you gain the empathy and perspective to design experiences that others will enjoy.

This approach democratizes tourism. Instead of trying to create one big, expensive venture, hundreds of micro-experiences can flourish, guided hikes, storytelling evenings, language exchanges, culinary classes, photo tours, music jams, and art trails.

Each experience may only reach a handful of visitors, but collectively, they bring economic value and cultural appreciation to regions that were previously overlooked.

More importantly, they are inclusive. Local boda riders, street vendors, artists, youth groups, and elders become part of the tourism ecosystem—not as bystanders, but as hosts, storytellers, and partners.

Kenya’s tourism story doesn’t need another luxury lodge.

It requires a new lens. One that values curiosity over capital, creativity over conformity, and experience over assumptions.

We unlock that lens not by reading brochures or benchmarking against tourism, but by packing a bag, hopping on a matatu, and seeing our country with new eyes.

As more Kenyans become tourists in their land, the invisible becomes visible.

And when that happens, tourism becomes more than a business, it becomes a bridge a bridge between communities and cultures, between dreams and livelihoods, between potential and reality.

So, if you’re thinking of building in tourism, travel first.

Travel widely. Travel simply. Travel with a notebook and open eyes, not as a tourist, but as a learner.

That’s how we build a tourism industry that belongs to us all.

The article was coauthored by Liesbeth Bakker of CASBI – Centre for Applied Sciences & Business Innovation