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Globalization has indeed created opportunities as well as socio-economic and ecological challenges for tourism economies. Digital transformation and liberalization in the financial sectors have evolved to address these needs. This chapter therefore seeks to examine the effects of digital financial transformation and legal environment for sustainable tourism development in East Africa.

The chapter adopts an interdisciplinary and pragmatic worldview on digital financial transformation and legal environment for sustainable tourism development in East Africa. This will engage qualitative research by examining recent extant literature, practitioner interviews, and secondary data.

In East Africa, the digital infrastructure for the Industry 5.0 is relatively underdeveloped hindering faster growth of digital financial economies and sustainable tourism. There is a weak legal framework in the East African countries in matters like e-business, cybercrime, and data privacy laws. The countries have gaps in their intellectual property laws which stifle innovation and these inadequate laws have led to increased digital online crime and frauds.

There is a need to strengthen and integrate a multi-sectoral approach toward a regional digital and legal policy framework in order to encourage innovation and e-business. Collaborative solutions, built on shared datasets, automate the financial services, creating efficiencies and accuracy in the financial systems.

The chapter draws on the use of interdisciplinary approaches toward developing a framework for digital financial transformation and legal environment for sustainable tourism development in East Africa.