Contribution of Sustainable Tourism to Economic Growth in Kenya: Implications for Policy

Abstract

Sustainable tourism presents an essential engine for social and economic development, and has a great capability for stimulation of employment and enterprise, especially for youth and women. Over the last decades, the measurement of sustainable tourism has been expanded and diversified even as debates on the appropriate approaches continue. In spite of this, the significance of sustainable tourism to employment and GDP is mostly underestimated in policy-making and strategy in tourism development. In recent years, there have been limited studies that established the effects of sustainable tourism development on economic growth. A longitudinal research design was adopted in obtain secondary data about Kenya from the World Travel and Tourism Council and the International Monetary Fund. E-views 10 software was used to analyze the time-series data. Drawing on the data from 1995 to 2020, Johansen co-integration, Granger causality, and regression approaches were used. Tourism GDP and tourism employment were adopted as measures of sustainable tourism, while real GDP per capita was employed as a measure of economic growth. The study found out that tourism employment and GDP are positively connected to economic growth in Kenya (β = 0.546086, p=0.000 < 0.05). The results indicated unidirectional association between economic growth, contribution to GDP and tourism employment. The findings indicated that a rise in Kenya’s economic growth significantly improves sustainable development of the tourism industry. The study suggests that legislators and tourism policymakers should focus on the policies aimed at promoting the ability of the tourism industry to provide more employment opportunities and contribute to GDP by tapping on the current economic growth. For long-term economic growth, tourism should be developed following the three pillars of sustainability.