Stakeholders say exorbitant park entry fees to drive away tourists

Lake Nakuru National Park gate. [Boniface Thuku, Standard]

Hersi said the triple hike for Kenyans and the domestic market will equally shock the system and undermine the Tembea Kenya campaign that has taken the industry a long time to build.

"Looking at the highest would be Tanzania which is in the $100 mark per day while South Africa, Zimbabwe and Zambia all charge between $20 to $35 a day. If it is migration please keep in mind that we share that experience with Serengeti hence we should be very careful how and when we choose to hike our rates," Hersi said.

For the Maasai Mara for example where the charges will start taking effect this month, at $200 a night from July to January it means a couple will be expected to pay Sh 6,285 ($400) a day.

A spot-check by The Standard revealed that Narok county would be the only one implementing the new rule of 12 hours to enter the Maasai Mara since all competing destinations offer the traditional 24 hours.

It simply means that what visitors to Mara will be paying to access the park will be comparable to or even higher than what they will be paying to stay at some of the camps and lodges.

"New rates require ample notice in the international market. Anything less than 18 months' notice is always a problem, consumers laws in most source markets do not allow price changes once a package has been bought and paid for. It means a local operator will have to top up and most of the tour operators operate on margin and very small margins for that matter," said Hersi.

Entumoto Luxury camp founder Karl Von Heland warned that that if Masai Mara management goes ahead and doubles park fees or even a 50 per cent hike operators in Kenya will be disadvantaged.

Heland said that the Mara is the magnet that attracts tourists' numbers and Lake Nakuru National Park, Amboseli and Laikipia would always ride on the Mara goodwill.

"Once the park fees go too high then it means fewer numbers and the worst hit will be lodges and camps located in Mara and KWS parks since numbers will reduce and even for those who make it they will reduce the number of nights," he said.

Maasai Mara National Reserve. [Robert Kiplagat, Standard]

"Many of our confirmed bookings will happily switch to other safari destinations and immediately Serengeti next door will be the biggest beneficiary of this fallout," Heland said.

"What does this mean to our economy? Less numbers visiting Kenya and hotels like in Nairobi and Mombasa will also miss out since they always host the transiting safari visitors to and from the parks, small camps in the Maasai Mara will be shut down by the end of the year due to lack of tourists," he added.

A tourist, F. Schramm reacted to the increase in park fees through a post on Facebook saying; "The combination of landscape and wildlife makes Kenya worth visiting for tourists. But if a safari with 3 nights costs as much as a 2-week hotel, something is wrong. For the people in Kenyan tourism, there are no alternatives. They exist for tourists. Tanzania, Namibia or Thailand. The greedy officials should think about that. Kenya is sawing off the branch it is sitting on."

During a recent validation forum held at the Nairobi National Park where tourism and conservation stakeholders discussed the proposed fees, KWS Director General, Erustus Kanga emphasized that the fees play a vital role in sustaining Kenya's wildlife resources.

"The new fees are in alignment with the government's Bottom Up Economic Transformation Agenda, as KWS strives to intertwine its objectives with Kenya's broader developmental aspirations," he said.

Narok Governor Patrick Ole Ntutu defended the move by the county government to increase park fees inside the Mara saying it was meant to improve service delivery for all stakeholders.