The flight from Entebbe to Nairobi takes less time than a football match about 50 minutes in the air. However, this short journey has long been associated with a high price tag, which stakeholders believe has limited the tourism revenue that Uganda and Kenya can generate from each other’s visitors.
This issue is at the heart of the 5th Uganda-Kenya Coast Tourism and Innovation Summit, scheduled for Mombasa on October 26–27, with the theme “Unlocking Tourism Opportunities: Resolving Policy Bottlenecks Through Technology, Youth, and Seamless Mobility Across East Africa.” At the summit’s launch, officials from both countries gathered to acknowledge a critical point: the region does not have a demand problem; it has a friction problem.
Stephen Asiimwe, CEO of Private Sector Foundation Uganda, highlighted the issue in terms that travelers can easily understand, even if policymakers often overlook them. A round-trip flight from Entebbe to Mombasa can cost about $700.
According to Asiimwe, this cost must be paid on the way back as much as it is on the way out. In a market characterized by short-haul, high-frequency social travel such as weddings, anniversaries, family visits, and holidays, this price tag does more than just deter a single trip. It impacts the entire tourism economy: fewer trips, shorter stays, and reduced spending once travelers arrive.
“Air travel should be viewed not simply as a private expense, but as a public issue. If Uganda and Kenya genuinely want tourism to serve as an economic engine, the price of a ticket should not be left to airlines and passengers alone; it must be part of the policy conversation, much like roads or visa regulations,” Asiimwe revealed.
The need for urgent action is evident. John Leonard Mugerwa from Uganda’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs revealed that over 460,000 Kenyans visited Uganda last year, while approximately 235,000 Ugandans traveled to Kenya.
“This total nearly 700,000 people moving between the two countries annually, largely without a coordinated marketing effort or an efficient mobility framework. This traffic exists despite existing barriers, indicating an unmet demand rather than a successful resolution of those barriers”. Mugerwa said.
He added that the goal of attracting five million tourists from each country highlights the current figures as insufficient a clear sign of significant, untapped potential.
The scale of this ambition is striking when compared to current numbers: reaching five million Kenyan visitors to Uganda would require a tenfold increase from last year’s 460,000 arrivals, while attracting five million Ugandan visitors to Kenya would mean a more than twentyfold increase from the current flow of 235,000.
These gaps highlight the vast opportunities for growth once cost and mobility challenges are addressed.
Cost is a significant concern for the summit, but strategic positioning is its main focus. Both David Kabata, Kenya’s Minister Counsellor at the High Commission in Kampala, and Uganda’s State Minister for Tourism, Wildlife and Antiquities, Hon Suzan Nakawuki, conveyed a unified message: “Uganda does not compete with the Kenyan coast; rather, it complements it”.
This represents a shift from a scarcity mindset that sees Kenya’s beaches as opposition to Uganda’s wildlife, toward a more integrated approach. They envision the Indian Ocean and the source of the Nile as two parts of a single East African itinerary.
Hon Nakawuki articulated this concept clearly, stating that the two countries represent “two destinations but one opportunity.”
The real challenge lies in whether this perspective can withstand practical realities such as airline schedules, visa policies, and marketing budgets. Nevertheless, it is significant that both governments are now promoting a shared narrative to their tourism sectors.
Kabata added a third dimension to the discussion, saying that technology should not be viewed merely as a marketing gimmick, but as the foundational element that could make the “complementary destinations” concept actionable.
“The goal is to create a tourism environment where visitors can easily discover, book, and pay for services while crossing borders with minimal hassle. This vision focuses less on flashy apps and more on interoperable systems, including cross-border payment options, seamless booking platforms, and readily accessible information,” he explained.
This aligns with the summit’s subtitle, which focuses on resolving bottlenecks “through Technology, Youth, and Seamless Mobility.”
Technology is being positioned as a means to alleviate some of the friction that policy alone has been slow to address.
One of the most candid moments came from Hon Nakawuki, who acknowledged that ordinary East Africans are already experiencing the integrated region that policymakers are still working to design.
“I sit down and wonder why we still have borders when East Africans have gone ahead of us. People are moving, trading, and building relationships across the Uganda-Kenya border on their own terms,” she said.
In her view, the government’s role is to catch up by streamlining non-tariff barriers, reducing approval times and decreasing hidden costs that complicate travel, even when ticket prices are low.
When stripped of diplomatic language, the Mombasa summit has three concrete issues to tackle.
The first is cost: Whether regional aviation policy, covering taxes, fees, and competition rules, can be seen as a lever that governments are willing to pull instead of a mere market outcome they observe. Currently, a single round trip between Uganda and the Kenyan coast costs travelers about $700, which Asiimwe cited as a significant deterrent to repeat travel.
The second issue is positioning: Whether the “complementary, not competing” framing used by both Kabata and Hon Nakawuki can translate into joint marketing campaigns and packaged itineraries that connect the source of the Nile with the Kenyan coast, or if it remains just a talking point at events like this one.
The third issue is mobility infrastructure: Whether technology and streamlined border procedures can reduce non-tariff friction, as Hon Nakawuki indicated, even before ticket prices change. At present, the two countries are already managing nearly 700,000 cross-border tourist movements a year without adequate infrastructure.
None of these problems are new to East African integration. The summit signals a narrower, more actionable ambition for October: not another declaration of intent, but a specific argument that the region’s tourism potential is currently burdened by internal frictions. Addressing these issues is framed as an economic necessity rather than a diplomatic convenience.
The two countries already facilitate nearly 700,000 people crossing their border every year without much support. The real question for the summit is what that number could look like if travel obstacles were removed.