Can Maasai Mara Afford Price of Fame?

Kenya should seek to ride on the Maasai Mara to attract other attractions such as conference tourism, according to Duncan Muriuki, the Kenya Association of Tour Operators (KATO) chairman.

"Our position is that the Mara should be used as the nectar that attracts the bees. Since Mara has been declared an exotic destination, then visitors should pay more.

"When the expected high demand is well managed, the country will get higher yields without necessarily increasing the number of beds," he adds.

Dr Ongong'a Achieng', the managing director of Kenya Tourism Board (KTB), the organisation that is charged with marketing Kenya abroad, says this recognition will assist in marketing Kenya in the United States.

"We will not only portray Maasai Mara as a leading ecotourism destination, but also all other national parks now being branded by the Kenya Wildlife Service."

But Aris Grammaticas, the owner and managing director of Governors Safari Camp, is worried that the recognition could encourage more uncontrolled and unplanned development in the Mara.

"Already, Maasai Mara's ecosystem is fragile and is unable to support the existing lodges and tented camps, leave alone the surging numbers of visitors," he says

Recently, there has been uncontrolled proliferation of camps and lodges in the wildebeest dispersal area, which has begun to impact negatively on Kenya's tourism image. There are over 40 properties (lodges and camps) in this area alone, in addition to nine within the Mara itself.

The Mara covers about 1,500 sq km of rich grassland, savannah, woodlands and riverine forests.

Unlike the Maasai Mara, the Serengeti, which covers 5,600 sq km has just four lodges and five camps.

"As a result, camps and lodges here command substantially higher rates than the top lodges in Kenya, which international operators are happy to pay as the areas have not been overdeveloped, and are perceived to be in pristine condition," said Mr Grammaticas.

Tourism in Kenya has for the past 35 years had its peak season, mid-season and off-season. This pattern, he says, will not change significantly by being recognised as a "wonder of the world."

"Increasing the number of beds will simply bring more overcrowding during peak seasons, to the detriment of the safari experience."

But before comparing expenditure per tourist between Kenya and neighbouring countries, it is important to appreciate that Kenya is more accessible internationally and is more affordable because of the high density and diversity of bed space, says Ndung'u Njaga, a tour consultant.

Budget tourism is the bedrock of the industry and therefore KTB should market Kenya in its entirety as a leading travel destination, he says, adding, "The issues of class and spending ability of visitors who come to Kenya will be naturally sorted out by the market, but we cannot, as a country, make it an agenda to woo only one class of visitors while neglecting the most dependable and productive tourism.

"Other destinations may be getting more dollars per person because of scarcity of facilities and fewer guests, which rob their markets of the economies of scale, making it more expensive to travel in those countries.

Dispelling fears that the new recognition will result in overcrowding, Kenya's Minister for Tourism and Wildlife, Morris Dzoro, says his ministry will go the extra mile to conserve the "wonder" for posterity. He is planning to spearhead a national conservation campaign, which will rally tourism stakeholders to conserve Maasai Mara through planting of trees in Mau Forest, which is Mara's lifeline.

A panel of experts partnering with ABC's Good Morning America and USA Today worked to develop a list of the "Seven New Wonders of the World." The panel agreed that of great importance on this list was a place that is relatively untouched by humans and that is in need of preservation. The annual Great Migration, which takes place between Kenya's Maasai Mara and Tanzania's Serengeti, made this list as an amazing "movable, natural wonder of the world."

Each year in the months of July and August, the promise of rain brings more than 1.5 million wildebeest and zebras together in one massive herd congregated around the Maasai Mara River from the Serengeti.

As the greenlands beckon, the animals begin to make a spectacular entrance to Kenya through the Mara River, one of the most breathtaking crossings one can ever witness - more than a million wildebeest, half a million gazelles, and 200,000 zebras simultaneously on the move.

All year round, the animals roam, pushing ever forward in a clockwise rotation covering the Serengeti in Tanzania and Maasai Mara in Kenya.

It's not always easy going. With the circle of life, comes the promise of death. Lions, cheetahs and leopards look forward to the herds' arrival. Wildebeest are easy prey for the big cats, and once the predators are done, the vultures move in to clear away the leftovers.

Then there are rivers filled with unfriendly crocodiles to cross. It happens over and over again. But the miracle of the Great Migration is that the animals mysteriously always find their way.

In the past three years, visitor arrivals to Kenya have almost doubled. In 2005, the country received 1.67 million tourists compared with 1.35 million in 2004.

e East African (Nairobi)