Kenya’s travel agents are looking at a rare commercial opportunity as the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) turns East Africa into a single sporting and tourism market, with the experience of Côte d’Ivoire showing how much spending can spill beyond the stadiums.
The tournament, which Kenya will co-host with Tanzania and Uganda from June 19 to July 17, 2027, will bring 24 national teams and thousands of travelling supporters into the region. CAF president Patrice Motsepe said last month that, despite challenges, he expected the East African tournament to be an “enormous success”.
For travel agencies, the opportunity is not simply to sell an air ticket to Nairobi. It is to package the entire journey, flights, hotels, airport transfers, match-day transport, insurance, excursions and cross-border travel, while using football to sell Kenya as a wider holiday destination.
Côte d’Ivoire provides the clearest African benchmark.
AFCON 2023 generated an estimated US$1.523 billion in local economic impact, according to CAF, including US$522.2 million in secondary and incremental spending. More than 1.2 million supporters attended the 52 matches, with 17 per cent of those surveyed coming from outside Côte d’Ivoire.
The tournament also produced US$86.5 million in retail and tourism revenue, while its global television audience reached about 1.4 billion and its digital impact was estimated at 2.2 billion views.
Those numbers matter for East Africa because the three-host model could spread visitor spending across a much wider geography.
In Côte d’Ivoire, the tourism effect was visible beyond the headline economic figures. The government had prepared more than 100,000 hotel beds ahead of the tournament while expecting more than two million visitors. In San Pedro, where Morocco, DR Congo, Zambia and Tanzania were based, the number of hotels increased from 191 in 2022 to 205 in 2023, while rooms rose from 3,332 to 3,654. Some hotels reported occupancy rates of 75 to 80 per cent during the tournament period.
At an Abidjan hotel, occupancy rose to around 80 per cent from 70 per cent the previous year, while room prices increased by about 30 per cent during key periods, according to reporting by RFI.
For Kenyan travel agents, the lesson is straightforward: football creates the initial demand, but accommodation, transport, leisure and hospitality capture much of the wider spend.
That opens the door to products that combine a match with a safari, beach holiday or city break. A supporter travelling from Nigeria, Ghana or Senegal could fly into Nairobi for a match, spend several days on safari and then continue to Uganda or Tanzania for another fixture. A corporate group could combine match hospitality with meetings, while supporter clubs could purchase flights, hotels and ground transport as a single package.
The three-country format makes regional itineraries particularly attractive. Instead of treating Nairobi, Kampala and Dar es Salaam as separate destinations, agents can sell them as stops on one AFCON journey.
That plays directly into the role of the professional travel agent.
Online platforms can sell an airfare or hotel room, but a multi-country football itinerary involves coordination. Flights have to connect with match dates; accommodation has to be available around peak fixtures; groups need transfers; and travellers may require changes when fixtures or plans shift.
The agent therefore becomes less of a ticket issuer and more of a trip architect.
There is also an opportunity to capture visitors who have little interest in spending their entire trip inside a stadium.
Côte d’Ivoire’s experience suggests that destination perception can be one of the tournament’s most valuable legacies. CAF found that 97 per cent of people surveyed believed AFCON 2023 helped promote Côte d’Ivoire as a tourism destination, while 90 per cent of international supporters said they would return to the country in future.
That is particularly relevant to Kenya, whose travel industry can use AFCON as a gateway to destinations that have nothing to do with football.
A fan may arrive for a match and leave having experienced the Maasai Mara. Another may discover the coast. A third may extend a business trip into a leisure holiday.
The commercial prize is therefore not necessarily the visitor’s match ticket. It is the additional nights, journeys and experiences attached to that ticket.
The timing also favours agents who begin planning early. AFCON qualification matches begin in September 2026 and run through March 2027, while the finals are scheduled for June and July. Teams that qualify will progressively reveal where supporter demand is likely to originate, allowing agencies to develop country-specific packages and group products.
For Kenya’s travel trade, that means supplier negotiations, hotel allocations, airline partnerships and regional ground-handling arrangements cannot be left until the tournament is underway.
The Côte d’Ivoire numbers show what is possible when football becomes a tourism engine. The 2023 tournament delivered US$1.5 billion in local economic impact, more than US$500 million in secondary spending and 1.2 million stadium spectators.
East Africa now has three destinations, an established tourism industry and a tournament that will command continental attention.
The opportunity for Kenyan travel agents is to ensure that when the football brings visitors through the airport, the money does not stop at the stadium gate.
It should continue into the hotel, the safari vehicle, the restaurant, the airline, the beach resort and, ultimately, the wider tourism economy.
