After the sudden and exciting escalation of measures in the last 48 hours, the Kenyan tourism sector finally comes to terms with the good news coming from Italy, namely the real reopening of tourism, inbound and outbound, between the two countries.
Italians will no longer have to show any motivation or declare falsehoods or half-truths through self-certifications in order to travel to the desired destination and, above all, every tourist facility will be able to manage bookings and advertise its activities in a way that is not fictitious but aimed at the arrival of all those who intend to take a vacation, even the first of their lives, in the equatorial paradises of a country that can offer at the same time white beaches and crystal clear sea and savannah with wild animals and breathtaking views and many other wonders.
Resorts with dozens of rooms can revise their agreements with tour operators and Italian travel agencies, boutique hotels can resume marketing on social networks and other channels and go back to working with anyone without appearing to be trendy or ahead of their time, safari agencies can go back to preparing tantalizing adventures and offering itineraries according to the needs and dreams of the client, and so on. Any player in the tourism industry who has experienced over the last thirty years how much the Italian presence, even seasonal, even "one-off", has been fundamental to their earnings and growth.
So here are restaurateurs, transfer organizers, artisans, beach boys (sic!), tailors, recovering optimism, ready to re-evaluate, especially on the coast, a type of tourist that they have missed and not only in terms of numbers. And they will benefit from their return, hopefully full-bodied if not from this Easter, from July and August and then live a season from November onwards on the wings of the positive ones of 2018 and 2019, even the women who sell fruits and vegetables at the market, the tuk-tuk masters and all the other small entrepreneurs who survive thanks to the so-called induced created by tourism.
The Italians, with all their flaws as somewhat sui generis travelers, their difficulties with languages, the provincialism that leads them to believe that the whole world is their country, are nonetheless among the favorite tourists in Africa and get along better with the local population than other European and Western nationalities.
As of today, we will experience the extent to which the passion and will of those who for two years have been pervaded by the famous African sickness, without any more alibis, will be transformed into airline tickets and a vacation finally free of prohibitions and with very few restrictions. But also how much the desire to travel to new places, completely different from the Western world that has imprisoned and stressed them, convinces and involves newcomers and leads them to get to know a place that will easily become part of their hearts.