First visa-free travellers land in Kenya
Kenya has welcomed its first group of foreign visitors travelling without a visa.
The East African nation received the visa-free travellers through their Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA) at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) on January 5.
The first group of travellers arrived from Addis Ababa on Ethiopian Airlines, local media Citizen TV reported.
Over 5,000 ETA applications have been received, and at least 2,100 of them have been approved, according to Kenya's Immigration Principal Secretary Julius Bitok.
According to the official, the approval process for applications takes at least 72 hours.
“It’s very easy to apply and get an ETA. You just need to fill in your personal data in ten minutes and you should be able to get approval in 72 hours. We have made sure that travelling to Kenya is going to be an easy and pleasant experience,” Bitok told reporters.
“ETA is a much superior system as we’re able to foretell persons who are coming to our country in advance and ensuring the necessary precautions are in place so that only the right people are welcomed,” he added.
The Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) on January 2 announced that the implementation of the visa-free policy had been delayed after Kenyan President William Ruto announced that the initiative was to commence on January 1.
