International travel-booking company Tourlane has named Kenya’s capital, Nairobi among the top 50 cities in the African which are environmental-friendly, thereby, ranking high for a getaway.
Tourlane ranked Nairobi at position 14 as celebrations of the World Environmental Day marked kicked off last week on Friday.
The ranking is the first for an African country.
Tourlane had eight categories which it used to grade, each with a total of 80 points.
The categories under which the metrics fell under include train accessibility which sought to know how many countries are connected by the particular country railway system.
Secondly, how the public transport was integrated and how far it stretches for each city. The score was calculated based on how long the metro and light rail system is.
The researchers also looked at the number of cars per 1000 people in a particular city and awarded a score based on the low number of cars per 1000 people under “Car Free” metric.
The agency also looked at the percentage of green space in the city meaning, the higher it is, the higher the score which they calculated through online tools such as computer vision and satellite images.
The number of residents in the city compared to that of international visitors was also used to derive scores in this metric. Tourlane employed the use of visitor data.
Based on the World Air Quality Index,, the researches gave points for “Clean Air” category and also looked at the total consumption percentage renewable energy to grade under the “Renewable Energy” category.
Lastly, recycling bases on the total amount (percentage) of waste that is recycled was also used.
In all the eight categories, Nairobi scored highly in the use of renewable energy, low ratio of tourists to locals, and low car ownership.
This comes as Tourism Cabinet Secretary Najib Balala strives to restore the country’s tourism sector.
Balala recently, in collaboration with the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) banned the use of plastic bottles at the Nairobi National Park which will also apply to all other national parks in the country.
“Today on 5th June #WorldEnvironmentDay, the ban of single-use plastics, including bottles and straws will go into effect, in all our Protected areas and National Parks in Kenya. #PlasticFreeParks,” he said.
KWS in a statement added: “This #WorldEnvironmentDay, Kenya has taken a bold step towards the Ban of single-use plastics in
all protected area.”
Cape Town in South Africa was also among the top 50 cities for a getaway at position 41 whole Marrakech in Morocco closed the list at 50th position.
