A High Court battle will take place in Kenya on February 7, as safari operators and Kenyan officials clash over the more-than-doubling of conservation levies.
The daily charges – which foreign visitors have to pay to enter or stay in a game reserve – have been increased across the country, as the East African powerhouse struggles following years of Covid lockdowns, travel restrictions, and rising inflation.
On January 1, the fee to enter the Maasai Mara rose from $80 a day to $100, with prices set to increase further on July 1 – to $200 per person per day in high season.
This price hike, announced by Narok County Council, could see tourists hit with thousands of dollars in unexpected costs, with some camps charging an additional $50 a day in ‘community fees’ on top of the levies.
The government-controlled Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), which is the subject of a temporary injunction, has increased fees in many of the parks it controls, with the steepest rise affecting the Nairobi National Park, where the daily charge has shot up from $43 to $100. Controversially, the levy has been expanded to cover visits to the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust’s elephant orphanage, which sits on the edge of the reserve – and whose visitors were previously exempt.
Its orphanage has become a key stop in Kenya’s tourist circuit, with some tourists basing their entire holiday around the chance to see the elephant calves being bottle-fed by their keepers.
Peggy Coombs – who is currently in Kenya – only found out a few weeks before she was due to fly that she and her husband would have to pay an additional $200 to go on the one-hour tour of the orphanage.
‘I’m not sure we’d have come to Kenya if we’d have known how much extra we’d have to pay in fees,’ said the British retiree, ‘especially if we were having to pay $200pp a day in the Maasai Mara.’
Hotel owners and others in the industry fear the new fees will evoke similar trepidation from would-be travellers. Interestingly, the injunction against the KWS’s price-hike was made by tourist stakeholders in Malindi, a beach resort largely dependent on Kenya’s safari industry for its visitors.
Richard Trillo, a former Kenya guidebook author who now works for the UK-based safari firm Expert Africa, warned that the price hikes have ‘blown up the local tourism economy’, especially for the ‘less expensive Maasai-owned camps just outside the park gates’.
He added:
‘There’s no doubt that lower-cost and mid-range tourism will be severely affected when a family of four hoping to see the drama of the wildebeest migration this summer will be faced with daily park fees of $1,000 before they have even booked flight tickets or accommodation.’
Dieke Geerling, of the Netherlands-based safari consultancy Kusafiri, described the plan as ‘stupid’. She said that wealthy clients would still book trips to Kenya, but predicted that they would book shorter holidays to keep the cost the same, thus reducing the amount earned by hotels, safari guides, and restaurant owners.
Ultimately, she thinks South Africa could be the biggest beneficiary of Kenya’s new levies, with many middle-class tourists opting to safari in Kruger, where conservation levies are around one-tenth of the Maasai Mara’s new high-season rate.
Scientists and conservationists are also conflicted about the plans. Dr Michael Thompson, who has studied and worked in the Mara for more than 30 years, pointed out that there are problems with ‘over-tourism’ in the Maasai Mara, with dozens of Jeeps sometimes crowding around one big cat.
‘The issue isn’t as serious in all parts of the Mara ecosystem, and it is still possible to visit conservancies and other parts of the Mara where overcrowding does not occur. Whilst the use of park entry fees to better manage these tourism pressures is to be welcomed.’
Both the KWS and the governor of Narok County said the higher levies were necessary, with the KWS director general, Erustus Kanga, claiming the move was intertwined with the government’s ‘broader development aspirations’.
However, many in the tourism industry see the move as a cash-grab, given fees are also going up in parks with very few visitors.
The Kenyan economy has suffered major turmoil since lockdowns were introduced in March 2020. In June last year, deadly riots broke out after President Ruto announced more than $2 billion in tax rises to try to keep the economy afloat. The High Court subsequently blocked some of the increases, and in November, the government was forced to ask for yet another bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The shuttering of Kenya’s $8.5 billion tourist industry – and the decision to implement vaccine passports and other restrictions until May last year – proved particularly damaging, with billions in much-needed revenue lost to the Treasury.
Poaching also rocketed during the lockdowns. The KWS reported a 51.4 per cent rise in bushmeat poaching during the first shutdown, as millions of Kenyans struggled to put food on the table.
‘It was a terrible time,’ said Kennedy Wanja, 39, who works as a game driver at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy. ‘The entire tourism industry was dead. So many people who were relying on tourism were left with nothing. My colleagues and neighbours would call asking, Is there anything you can send to help us?’
Although Wanja was laid off for the best part of two years – initially on partial pay, until the hotel had to stop his wages altogether – he describes himself as ‘lucky’. His wife works at the British Army base next to the reserve, and her wages meant that they, their two daughters, and Wanja’s brother and his family survived.
Wanja’s employer, like most tourist businesses, is still struggling to recoup the losses of the past few years. ‘The majority of people [who were laid off] still haven’t come back,’ revealed Wanja.
‘Everyone is frightened it could happen again.’
Adam Edwards is an award-winning travel writer, journalist and former editor of NewsAfrica Magazine.
