More than 10,000 hotel employees in Mombasa have been laid off after the Tourism sector hit a low season despite assurances from President Uhuru Kenyatta that the sector was recovering.
In his State of the Nation address last week, Kenyatta told parliament that his government had introduced incentives worth Sh1.2 Billion to encourage more tourist charter flights into the country.
However, the Daily Nation reports that chartered airlines from Italy ended flights to Mombasa last week owing to low passenger numbers.
The report further states that close to 40 per cent of hotels across the region have either closed or scaled down operations with the worst hit being hotels located in Malindi and Watamu, where 5,500 workers have been sent home.
Kenya Union of Domestic, Hotels, Educational Institutions, Hospitals and Allied Workers (KUDHEIHA) North Coast branch Secretary Michael Yaa stated that, he expected more staffers to lose their jobs as more hotels stopped operations.
However, the hotels are expected to resume operations later in the year when the tourism season peaks and charter flights resume.
Yaa decried the unfair treatment that some of the employees were accorded including being sent home without a leave allowance.
He said,“ According to Labour laws, employers are required to pay permanent workers leave allowance in case they are told to go home when business is low”.
The Kenyan tourism sector has been struggling to pick, after being affected by a series of terror threats and subsequent travel advisories by selected European countries.
