TRI was established under the Tourism Act No. 28 of 2011 to serve as the independent national body responsible for tourism research, data collection, analysis, and intelligence dissemination across Kenya's tourism ecosystem. We exist to convert data into decisions.
The Tourism Research Institute was established as a State Corporation under Section 60 of the Tourism Act No. 28 of 2011 and commenced operations in 2012. TRI's mandate covers the full intelligence lifecycle for Kenya's tourism sector — from primary data collection through statistical analysis to policy-ready intelligence dissemination.
TRI serves four primary user communities: the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife and Cabinet; Kenya's 47 county tourism offices; private sector operators, investors, and industry associations; and international partners including the UN Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), development finance institutions, and foreign diplomatic missions.
As a UNWTO International Network of Sustainable Tourism Observatories (INSTO) member, TRI applies internationally comparable statistical standards — specifically the Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) framework and the UNWTO International Recommendations on Tourism Statistics — to all primary data collection and publication outputs.
TRI does not compete with any institution in the ecosystem it maps. It is the neutral intelligence infrastructure on which all other tourism stakeholders draw.