All the Ministers of Tourism for the East African region have expressed their optimism towards the full establishment of a single tourism market for the East African market. This announcement was made at meeting of the 5 sister state countries at the stand of Burundi at the World Travel Market in London on 9th November 2011. The Minister for Tourism, Honourable Najib Balala who is leading a tourism promotional delegation in Europe, attended the meeting together with the Managing Director of Kenya Tourist Board, Mr. Mureithi Ndegwa. The states include Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania and have a combined market force of 135 million people and an estimated GDP of US $ 74.5billion. The countries have a wide range of tourists products that compliment each other and therefore would enable the region capture a huge market.

The Ministers noted that the process that started way back in 2008 has taken rather long and there is need to hasten the implementation following the signing of the aProtocol by the heads of States on 20th November 2009. The issue of having a single tourist destination has been one of the highlights of the East African Cooperation and this requires the 5 countries adopt a single tourist visa.

The Ministers noted that the private sector in the partners countries have expressed a lot of optimistic that the single destination and visa will transform the structure of tourism for the region. Already work has been going on to develop code of conducts for the private sector. At the same time there is good progress towards standardization of the accommodation process and harmonized tourism and wildlife conservation policies across the countries.

The Ministerial meeting also announced that next year a new body called East African Tourism and Wildlife Cooperation Agency will be established to coordinate tourism promotional activities.