A positive season for Italian tourism on the Kenyan coast draws to a close. As it does every year and, accomplice to the "low" Easter, the flow of compatriots attending the most popular destinations (in the order of attendance, Watamu, Malindi, Diani, Mambrui, Kilifi, Mombasa and Lamu) is decreasing.
So-called "leisure" tourism, i.e., resorts and "all-inclusive" weeks, will end just as Easter arrives, with the last return charter flight set for April 6. But these days many, especially stationed Malindi, are also returning by scheduled flights, from Mombasa and Nairobi, after a longer stay. They are the vacationers, almost always "repeaters," who happily come to winter in these parts every year. As is well known, Kenya, albeit with some hiccups related to tourist visa bureaucracy, between online paperwork and official stamps in the passport, allows non-residents to stay for three months, renewable for a maximum of three more. A choice, coinciding precisely with the late autumn in Italy and the beginning of spring, which in most cases begins in October and ends between late March and early April. After all, this is the real summer season in Kenya, with the first rains arriving in the north (and hopefully this year they will not remain well below seasonal averages, as has unfortunately been the case for 4 years now) and should also affect the coastal belt.
This is not to say, of course, that Kenya from April to July is unattractive; within this period there are sunny days and opportunities to visit places that are less crowded and perhaps for that reason even more fascinating. Inevitably, however, the pearls of tourism empty out and take on (with due proportion) that appearance known to European vacation destinations when winter arrives. It will be the local tourism, Kenyans in Nairobi especially, who will take advantage of it precisely during the Easter holidays and weekends.
Happy return to those who leave paradise and happy Kenya to those who stay and arrive, ignoring the dictates of commercial and climatic seasons.
But in the meantime, "Malindi empties out," as the sonnet below from our Youtube channel reads.