Tourism, gender, and climate change adaptation in Kenya's coast

Tourism’s development along Kenya’s coast has undergone gradual yet significant transformation shaped by political dynamics, foreign investment, and local culture. Originating from colonial leisure pursuit in the early 1900s, Kenya’s coastal tourism evolved into a key pillar in both national and devolved government plans. In recent years, the national government has taken a more active role in guiding tourism’s trajectory, building on a legacy established by foreign investors who set up the region’s early resort economy. These developments have had substantial impact on the livelihoods of coastal communities, influencing opportunities, for example employment opportunities for women who make up the majority of global tourism workforce. The developments also expose local communities to new vulnerabilities, particularly considering gendered risks in ocean governance and climate change.
As climate change intensifies threats to marine life, coastal settlements, and tourism infrastructure, every decision made about tourism development becomes even more significant. The sector’s future depends not only on healthy marine environments, but also on resilience of local communities involved in tourism work. In this context, the central argument of this study is that adaptation with relevance to Kenya’s coastal tourism is both relational and political, shaped by imbalances in power relations and competing sectoral priorities in the ocean economy. Framed through the lens of feminist political ecology, this study examines how power asymmetries influence climate adaptation in coastal tourism, taking note of incorporation or neglect of gender responsiveness within the process.
Despite tourism’s consistent ranking among Kenya’s top contributors to Gross Domestic Product and ocean economy, the sector has in the past failed to establish strong local community linkages. As a result, many coastal communities remain excluded from the sector’s meaningful economic engagement and decision making. This exclusion becomes more visible as climate change impacts intensify, with the effects of tourism’s vulnerabilities spilling over to communities that depend on the sector. A key challenge is that these communities are rarely central in adaptation planning, illustrating political hierarchies that feminist political ecology critiques, where local agency and gendered vulnerabilities are obscured. As this pattern eventually erases local and place based knowledge, it reflects tensions within development narratives shown to marginalize alternative ways of knowing.

This study is structured around three main objectives. First, a literature review investigates how gender is approached in tourism research on climate change, revealing persistence of disciplinary silos between sub fields. Second, through participatory photo voicing workshops with women in a coastal tourism destination, the research showcases how local coastal communities experience climate change impacts, detailing their descriptions of non-economic loses. This participatory approach ensures that women’s voices are foregrounded, especially considering literature evidence of sidelining of women’s voices on environmental matters. Third, the study uses mental modeling to compare how different stakeholder groups conceptualize climate risks to coastal tourism. The findings note striking differences between policy makers and tourism practitioners, with the latter, shown by literature and policy review, to be often excluded from formal decision making. Top-down processes and tokenistic participation, undermine effective, inclusive adaptation, as they reinforce existing hierarchies and overlook grassroots knowledge. Collectively, findings from this study contribute to debates on climate justice and the need to re-center local voices, particularly those of women, in shaping equitable and sustainable future for coastal tourism and ocean economy.