Kenya is to host the World Athletics Championships in September 2029, the first time the competition will take place on the African continent. World Athletics announced the allocation of the organization rights for the event to Nairobi on Tuesday, 15 September 2026, during a meeting of the Council in Budapest. Hosting the event will benefit Kenya both in terms of promoting the local sports sector and the national tourism strategy.
The World Athletics Championships, which will take place every two years, gather together the best athletes from 193 countries. The last edition of the competition, which took place in Tokyo in 2025, attracted more than 619,000 spectators.
The authorities of Kenya see the event as an excellent opportunity to develop sports. In addition, the Minister of State for Tourism sees this as an opportunity to develop the tourism sector. Kenya’s National Tourism Strategy 2025-2030 aims to achieve 5 million tourist arrivals by 2030 and increase tourism receipts to KES 1,200 billion ($9 billion). The Kenya government is focusing on the potential of its tourism products to meet the targets and is also looking to increase the use of digital technology. In addition, sport is seen as one of the key elements of the strategy to strengthen Kenya as a tourist destination.
Sport as a Driver of Tourism Across Africa
Rwanda is not the only country in Africa that has undertaken active measures to integrate sport into the strategy for developing national tourism. The country has partnered with major European football clubs, such as Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal, to promote the “Visit Rwanda” concept. A similar agreement was recently signed between the Democratic Republic of Congo and FC Barcelona. It remains to be seen what specific benefits these agreements will bring to tourism, but in general, sport can certainly help to promote a country as a tourist destination.
In Kenya, there have been examples of how hosting a sporting event can benefit the national tourism strategy. For example, staging the World Cup in South Africa in 2010 generated revenues of around R30 billion for the country, of which R23 billion was spent on stadium construction, as well as transport and telecommunications infrastructure. The construction of ten stadiums provided employment for 66,000 people. As for the tourist revenue, 309,554 foreigners arrived in South Africa especially for the World Cup, and spent a total of R3.64 billion on tourism. In 2010, South Africa recorded 8.07 million tourist arrivals, representing an increase of 15.1% year-on-year.
More recently, in Côte d’Ivoire, the Africa Cup of Nations was staged, an event that officially attracted more than 1.2 million spectators to the stadiums, 17% of whom were foreigners, according to the Confederation of African Football’s 2023-2024 activity report.
Kenya Will Benefit from Hosting Two Major Sports Events in a Row
Kenya is preparing to stage another major international sporting event – the Africa Cup of Nations in 2027, which will be co-hosted by Kenya and Tanzania. Therefore, Kenya will have an opportunity to leverage the experience and infrastructure of the previous competition. This provides the country with the opportunity to maximize the benefits in terms of tourism. Moreover, there is an additional benefit for Kenya, as the country will host two major sporting events in a row.
Nairobi plans to use the World Athletics Championships to upgrade the facilities and develop the tourist product. Kenya will benefit from the experience gained and a potential increase in visitors to the country after the successful edition of the World Athletics Championships.
