Kenya
Tourism seeks support
Matiba Urges
Kenya Government to Support Tourism
Sector
Chairman
of the Kenya Tourist Board (KTB)
Raymond Matiba saidthat the sector was
on the recovery path following
aggressive marketing campaign abroad.
He asked the Government to continue
supporting efforts by the private
sector so that marketing of Kenya as a
destination of choice is
sustained.
He was
speaking at the opening of Chronicle
Tours and Travel new offices at the
I&M Bank building along Kenyatta
Avenue, Nairobi. He was accompanied by
KTB chief executive Betty Buyu.
The tour agency is one of the few
indigenous firms that have remained
consistent in the business despite the
slow-down in the tourism sub-sector. It
handles a wide spectrum of travel
programmes, including wildlife, bird
watching, flying, mountaineering,
sporting, adventure and cultural
safaris.
The
Minister for Tourism and Information,
Kalonzo Musyoka, said the
Government has started negotiations
with a number of airlines that had
abandoned Nairobi to resume operations.
He said there was strong indications
that the consultations were likely to
bear fruits soon. Some of the airlines
that had abandoned Kenya include
Sabena, Air France and Alitalia, among
others
In a
statement read for him by an Assistant
Minister Shadrack Manga, the minister
said the Government was working on a
proposal to lead a delegation of tour
operators and travel agents to
exhibitions in new markets like Hungary
and Thailand.
Of
course, the country's greatest natural
attractions will always be its best
known: the 1,500 square km Maasai Mara
National Reserve, home to the
world-famous wildebeeste migration; the
Amboseli plains, ruled by elephants and
dominated by the striking snow-dome of
Mount Kilimanjaro; the deep tropical
forests of the Aberdares, home to the
rare bongo antelope; and the stirring
northern wilderness of Samburu, where
some of the world's hardiest animals
roam. These parks are also home to the
nomadic Maasai and Samburu peoples,
whose handsome, ochre-smeared warriors
have become as familiar a symbol as the
animals they live so peacefully
alongside.
But it
is outside the country's parks and
reserves that the real "new Kenya" is
being born. In the semi-arid bushland
where 70 percent of Kenya's wildlife
still lives, a number of pioneering
ecotourism initiatives are slowly
showing local communities that wild
animals can be as profitable as their
liverstock. At Ngesi on the sweeping
Laikipia Plateau, the local Samburu
community has cordoned off 16,500 acres
for its wildlife and built a beautiful
12-bed camp that recently won one of
British Airways prestigious Tourism for
Tomorrow" awards. So successful has the
project been that a second property.
Tassia Lodge, is now being constructed
on a 100,000-acre group ranch over
Ngwesi's northern boundary, using the
same indigenous deadwoods, solar power
and echo-friendly facilities as its
famous neighbor.
Several
other camps are also helping to reserve
the centuries-old reliance on cattle:
the Eselenkei Conservation Area north
of Amboseli, where the local Maasai
have just welcomed their first
migrating elephants in more than 15
years and the Namunyak Wildlife
Conservation Trust in the Mathews
Mountains where local scouts man a
75,000-acre conservation area and the
safari company Acacia Trails is in the
process of handing over its 10-bed
Sarara Camp to 16 young Samburu
managers.
Kenya
is taking its new ecoresponsibility
very seriously. Over the past three
years, the Kenya Professional Safari
Guides Association has begun to lift
the standards and ethics of a new
generation of safari guides, while the
Ecotourism Society of Kenya has
launched an intiative to establish an
decorating scheme for policing the
practices of the country's lodges and
tour operators.
Already
several of the country's largest
tourism operations, such as Serena
Hotels, Savannah Camps and Heritage
Hotels, have shown a strong commitment
to cleaning up their acts, dedicating
more resources to their local
communities, and helping to spread the
environmental word in some of the
world's last great
wildernesses.
Savannah
Camps, for example, has established a
giant conservation scheme on four group
ranches in the Taita Hills, where its
unique blend of community-run tourism
and educational activities includes a
40-bed study center for foreign and
local students, a 12 bed camp for
participation tourists" whose holidays
involve tracking elephants with local
conservationists and six villages where
gap-year students are helping their
hosts to develop businesses in
medicinal plants, essential oils and
alternative fuel sources.
"From
diving on the beautiful marine parks,
to playing golf on some spectacular
courses, to climbing the slopes of
Mount Kenya, offers so much more than
the "Big Five" animals for which it is
best known.
On the
Coast, too, a new responsible attitude
is helping to preserve the
architectural and natural heritage of
one of the world's oldest seafaring
cultures just north of Mombasa, the old
quarry of the Bamburi cement factory
has been transformed by the acclaimed
Swiss ecologist Rene Haller into a
rich-rainforest inhabited by an
incredible, array of a animals and
birds.
To the
north, inland from the 14th century
ruins of Gede; lies one of Africa's
richest ornithological treasures, the
arabuko Sokoke Forest - the last of the
great indigenous coastal forests and
one of East Africa's most important
nature conservation sites. As well as
six globally threatened birds,
including the Sokoke pipit and Sokoke
Scops owl, the forest contains a
variety of rare trees and an abundance
of unique duikers, shrews and
bushbabies.
The
European Unionist supporting various
nature projects here, including honey
farming forest management and an
award-winning butterfly project that
today provides incomes for more than
200 families.
The EU
is also financing a wealth of other
projects on the Kenya coast, including
the restoration of the ancient Arab
architecture of Mombasa and Lamu
Island, and the development of visitor
centres at Gedeand Mombasa's stunning
Fort Jesus.
From
diving on the beautiful marine parks
that line these shores to playing golf
on some of the most spectacular courses
in Africa, from hunting for traces of
our earliest ancestors at the Leakeys'
desert retreat on Lake Turkana to
climbing the ice-clad slopes of Mount
Kenya, from watching the traditional
dhow builders of Lamu to trout fishing
in the icy streams of the Aberdares and
bird-watching in the unique forests of
Kakamega. Kenya offers so
much
more
than the "Big Five" animals for which
it is best known. In a land with so
many varied faces, visitors will never
have to go far to see a completely
different side of
Africa.
TRADE
AND TRAVEL DIRECTORY
Africa
Travel Magazine's Kenya Tourism Info
Center
Please
support these advertisers, who support
Africa on ATA's worldwide media
combination.
Kenya
Airways:
http://www.kenya-airways.com/feedback_form.html
http://www.kenya-airways.com/
Hat
Hotel and Adventure Tours
and Safaris, Nairobi.
Peter Muiruri aadvesafari@africaonline.co.ke
Aloha
Tours & Safaris
Kenya:
011-254-2-71-9330
USA 800-699-3191. Fax: 623-322-2755
E-mail: alohatres@aol.com, website:
www.aloha-safaris.com
Hotel Inter-Continental Nairobi
City Hall Way, PO Box 30353
Nairobi
Tel. 254 (2) 261 1000, Fax 254 (2) 210
675/214 617
Internet site:
http://www.interconti.com
e-mail: nairobi@interconti.com
DALLAGO
TOURS & SAFARIS
Martin Njagi, Loita House, Loita
Street
P.O. Box 66416, Nairobi, Tel: 254 2
331562 / 251992
Fax: 254 2 245174, Email:
martin@dallagotours.com
info@dallagotours.com
. Web: www.dallagotours.com
Lewa
Wildlife Conservancy
PO
Box 49918, Nairobi, Kenya,Tel +254
(164) 31405 Nairobi office +254 (2)
607893 fax 607197,
lewa@swiftkenya.com
Kenya
Association of Tour Operators
P.O. Box 48461, Nairobi, Kenya
Tel: +254 2 225570 Fax +254 2
218402
Email:
kato@africaonline.co.ke
Kenya
Tourism: http://www.kenyatourism.com/
Kenya Ecotourism:
http://www.eco-resorts.com/
Kenya
Wildlife Service: http://www.kenya-wildlife-service.org/
Wildlife Trust: http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/index.html
Promoting
Kenya in North
America
A
large Kenya delegation toured North
America in 2000, starting with a Kenya
Night event in Vancouver, BC, Canadam
followed by Seattle, Portland, San
Francisco and Los Angeles. The group
then proceeded to Las Vegas for ASTA's
World Travel Congress. To arrange a
similar Road Show contact Africa Travel
Association, Canada Chapter
africa@dowco.com,
fax 604-681-6595.
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