Photo: Onyango George / EA Hospitality Pulse (photograph) · EA Hospitality Pulse (publisher-supplied) · Publisher-owned photograph, supplied by the editor as his own work. The Kenyan coat of arms and the SENATE signage appear incidentally as features of the building; EA Hospitality Pulse is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to Parliament, the Senate or the Government of Kenya.

Kenya Gave Its Tourism Levy Trustees Three-year Terms on 18 September, a Day after Operators Fought the Fee Schedule.

🌆 EVENING WRAP · Tue 22 Sep 2026

KENYA GAVE ITS TOURISM LEVY TRUSTEES THREE-YEAR TERMS ON 18 SEPTEMBER, A DAY AFTER OPERATORS FOUGHT THE FEE SCHEDULE

On 17 Sep nine trade associations told the Senate's Delegated Legislation Committee that Legal Notice 127's fee schedule was drafted without them. Chair Sen. Mwenda Gataya: the committee would decide "whether to annul or accede" (The Kenya Times, 18 Sep 2026).

On 18 Sep the Cabinet Secretary gazetted three-year appointments to the bodies that hold the money. Tourism Fund Board: Patrick Ngere re-appointed, Nicholas Kimeli and Dr Yvonne Tharao appointed. Utalii College Council: Rose Polyne Nyambura re-appointed, Dr Dorothy Jepkoech Rotich appointed. KWS Board: Michemi Ndegwa, Beatrice Lempaira, renewed (Kenya Gazette w/e 18 Sep, via Vellum Kenya, 21 Sep). We find no trade coverage of it.

What everyone is missing. A licence fee is a fixed sum. The 2% levy is a share of everything you sell — for any real turnover it is the bigger number, and it scales with your success. The Tourism Amendment Bill would give the CS the job of "determining the amounts of money payable for the Fund" (Eastleigh Voice, 21 Aug 2026). PS Julius Bitok defends it by analogy to KRA collecting via e-Citizen for CBK. But KRA collects at rates Parliament sets. The analogy covers the plumbing, not the tap.

Three-year terms run to Sept 2029, past the Aug 2027 election. The fee schedule is still undecided. The trustees are seated.
🏷 City, Bush, Beach | Kenya | Confirmed (gazette) · Inference (the read) | impact:margin
🎯 Budget the 2027 levy as a variable, not a constant, and keep a statutory-cost-variation clause in 2027 group contracts. Then file on the Bill: Kareke Mbiuki has that window open. The fee window has closed.

📻 ALSO TONIGHT
🇰🇪 Same gazette, not previously carried: Treasury reports KSh 882.23bn revenues to 31 Aug against KSh 5.18trn estimates.
🇺🇬 Blind spot partly closes. UWA's rates page now carries a Tariff changes 2026-2027 document, so a UWA-hosted replacement for the lapsed tariff does exist. The page still links the expired one. No Ugandan fee figure asserted until we parse it.
🇨🇩 No new WHO DON since DON617 (10 Sep): DRC 6,757 cases / 3,267 deaths to 7 Sep, CFR 48.3% — the Confirmed floor. Secondary reporting carries 7,672 / 3,699 to 20 Sep: Reported only.
🇨🇦 Canada's Ebola border measures expire 28 Sep, six days out. No successor tonight. P198 open.

🔍 BLIND SPOTS. Africa CDC's posted weekly is still August's, third night running. The radar's evening window returned 0 observations — sandbox proxy, not a dead pipeline. Search served a Business Daily "Taxman to collect tourism levy" piece as current; it is dated 3 July 2022. Dropped. Zanzibar's health ministry was read directly, closing yesterday's gap.

🔗 Web: eahospitalitypulse.com/editions/pulse-2026-09-22-evenin…
💼 Tonight's Big Read: linkedin.com/company/ea-hospitality-pulse/