Until recently, relatively low visitor densities
in the MMNR have meant that the Reserve has been able to cater for
both budget tourists on package holidays as well as much wealthier
tourists on tailor-made safaris, often staying in exclusive mobile
camps especially erected for their stay. These different tourism
products have largely co-existed alongside one another, with the
budget tourists mainly using the more accessible parts of the
Reserve near the major lodges and with higher visitor densities,
while the premium tourists have mainly used the remoter areas where
the road networks are less developed and with lower visitor
densities.
The maintenance of these low use areas in the
Reserve has ensured the preservation of a sense of wilderness (an
important part of the Reserve’s tourism brand), and has also
helped to keep the environmental and ecological impacts of visitor
use to a minimum. In contrast, areas that experience higher levels
of visitor use have traditionally provided the bulk of the
Reserve’s revenues, and supported a large number of
tourism-related businesses nationwide. Importantly, this diverse
tourism product appeal has also improved the financial
sustainability of the MMNR, by providing a buffer against
unforeseen events that may impact on a particular segment of the
tourism market.
However, this de facto separation
between the budget (high use) and premium (low use) tourism
products in the Reserve has in recent years begun to break down
under the overwhelming force of visitor numbers, and there is now a
real danger that the Reserve’s tourism offering will soon
become an all high use, budget offering, unless explicit measures
are implemented in this management plan to maintain the premium
tourism product in the Reserve. This simplification of the
MMNR’s tourism offering is widely regarded as very
undesirable for several reasons. Firstly, focusing on a single
market segment is likely to increase the risks to the
Reserve’s financial sustainability. Secondly, this will
undermine the role of the Mara Reserve as the flagship of
Kenya’s tourism industry, and thirdly, an entirely high
density tourism product is certain to increase the environmental
impacts and disturbance to wildlife from visitor use. Most
importantly, however, a well managed premium tourism product
that captures the true economic potential of this
market has the potential to generate optimal economic
benefits from the Reserve alongside minimal environmental
deterioration, as has been proven in other African countries such
as South Africa, Namibia and Botswana, and increasingly, Tanzania.
This state of optimal economic benefits alongside minimal
environmental damage is of course, the overall purpose of this
Tourism Management Programme, and the premium tourism product has a
potentially crucial role to play in achieving this
purpose.
It seems certain that without proactive
management, the potential economic and environmental benefits of
the premium low use tourism product are likely soon to be lost in
the MMNR, in the face of short-term and less robust economic
imperatives. A key guiding principle of this programme, and indeed
the entire management plan, is therefore that MMNR management will
seek to consolidate and enhance the traditional diverse tourism
products that the MMNR has provided, featuring both the budget
high-use tourism product as well as the premium low use product.
This will involve enhancements to both tourism products –
with actions and prescriptions to enhance the experience for budget
visitors in high use areas, alongside actions and prescriptions to
enhance and differentiate the wilderness and exploration experience
for premium visitors in the low use areas, and to capture the true
economic value of the premium product.
