Licensing
Online Booking Platforms
- Homestay: Is a form of accommodation located in rural, urban or peri-urban areas in which the guest stays with the home owner of the family unit, regularly interacting with the host, sharing common family facilities and taking part in family activities and in this way availing the guest a more-intimate interactive experience of the host’s way of life.
- Villa: A detached or semi-detached fully-furnished private house or holiday home, usually luxurious in nature, with its own grounds and which is rented out to a selected clientele or used as a holiday home
- Service Flat/Apartment: A fully-furnished apartment with separate living area, kitchen/kitchenette, bathroom and sleeping quarters and available for short-term or long-term stay and providing guests with amenities for daily use.
- Condominium: A building or complex comprising of many individually-owned apartments.
- Hostel: An accommodation system designed to suit people on a budget. It is usually inexpensive, catering mainly to the youth and usually lacking in privacy and comfort with shared sleeping and bathroom quarters.
Facilities enlisted on Online platforms fall under any of the following regulated tourism activities and services contained in the Ninth Schedule of the Tourism Act 2011:
- Class A Enterprises:
(i) Hotels
(ii) Members clubs
(iii) Motels
(iv) Inns
(v) Hostels
(viii) Ecolodges
(xi) Service flats
(xii) Service apartments
(xiii) Beach cottages
(xiv)Holiday cottages
(xv) Game lodges
(xviii) Bandas
(xx)Villas
(xi) Homestays
(xii) Guest houses
Class B (i) Restaurants
The Tourism Act, 2011 and Tourism Regulatory Authority, Regulations 2014 make the following provisions for licensing:
- Section 7(1) (c) requires tourist-related activities and services including cottages and private residences engaged in guest house services to be licensed by TRA.
- Section 98(1) requires any person carrying out a tourism business or service specified in the Ninth Schedule to get a license from TRA;
- Section 19(1) requires TRA licenses to be renewed three months before expiry.
- Section 19(2) stipulates imposition of a penalty of 10% of the license fee for every month’s delay in renewing a license.
- Section 29(1) mandates TRA officers to regularly carry out inspection of tourism facilities and services where non-compliance is suspected or for purposes of granting or renewal of a license.
- Section 112 imposes a fine not exceeding one hundred thousand shillings or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding eighteen months, or to both for any person contravening this Act.
- The Fourth Schedule lists the license fee payable by various tourism activities and services.
