Wildebeest crossing the Mara river in Masai Mara. Picture by BrianScott: http://www.flickr.com/photos/brianscott/
In the past few months, one of the most predominant news item from the Kenya tourism industry has been the existence of illegal camps and lodges in the Maasai Mara game reserve. According to the Kenyan government, more than 70% of the Masai Mara lodges, safari camps and resorts are operating illegally. Kenya’s Minister for tourism, Najib Balala, went as far as threatening to shut down all these lodges (see this story).
A twin issue related to this is that some of these camps are said to be intruding in the niches of endangered species like the black rhino, threatening the already fragile ecosystem (see story here).
Of course, if these camps and lodges have not been licensed, shutting them down is a very logical action. But this would present one big problem: a drop in tourist numbers. Currently, there are approximately 108 camps and lodges in the Masai Mara area, with a total bed capacity of about 4000. If you forcefully close 70% of these, bed capacity would probably drop by the same margin (to about 1200 persons). Considering that Masai Mara is the most visited and best known game reserve in Kenya, such a reduction would affect the entire tourism sector in more than one way.
