09-19-2025 
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Kenya has announced a new partnership with global payments giant Visa (NASDAQ: V) to boost its tourism sector.
The Kenya Tourism Board (KTB) announced that it had partnered with Visa to promote tourism spending and boost accessibility to Visa’s payment solutions. The two will also join hands on marketing campaigns to attract more visitors to the East African nation.
Visa will further provide the Kenyan government access to its Government Insights Hub, a platform that collects and aggregates payment data globally. The Hub displays real-time global consumer spending behavior, including tourism trends such as visitors’ origins and spending, year-over-year comparisons, and peak seasons.
Tourism only trails agriculture as Kenya’s largest foreign exchange earner and employs over 1.7 million Kenyans.
Tourism Cabinet Secretary Rebecca Miano said Kenya welcomed a record 2.4 million international visitors in 2024, a 15% increase from the previous year. However, the country still trails regional leaders like Egypt and Morocco, which each drew over 15 million visitors last year, as well as Tunisia and South Africa, which received around nine million visitors.
One of Kenya’s biggest drawbacks is the concentration of its tourism activity in just a handful of destinations, including its renowned Maasai Mara game reserve and its coastal cities. With Visa’s insights, the country can redirect some of the activity to other regions, potentially increasing total numbers and the spending per visitor.“This collaboration is especially timely as it equips us with precise insights that go beyond mere numbers. We now have a lens into how travellers spend, enabling us to craft finely tuned marketing strategies. [It] ensures we turn data into decisive action,” commented Allan Njoroge, the Acting CEO at KTB.
Meanwhile, the country’s private sector is participating in the digitalization journey. One of the largest local lenders—NCBA Bank—recently announced a partnership with global nonprofit Water.org to explore digital solutions in the education sector. The two recently hosted an event that explored how emerging technology, such as digital banking and AI, can help Kenyan educational institutions cut costs, become sustainable, and boost efficiency.
Water.org was founded by Hollywood star Matt Damon in 1990 to provide safe water and sanitation to poverty-stricken regions.
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