Tanzania to raise entry fees in Kilimanjaro and Serengeti

After months of hot debate over new park entry fees to Tanzania’s two famous tourist parks, Tanzania National Parks authority has issued hiked rates to foreign tourists climbing Mount Kilimanjaro and those visiting Africa’s famous Serengeti National Park.

The disputed park entry fees to be enforced on the first day of 2006 are US$60 for Mount Kilimanjaro climbers and US$50 to be charged from photographic safari visitors to the Serengeti National Park.

Present entry fees to the two parks which generate over 75 percent of foreign tourist incomes are US$40 for Mount Kilimanjaro climbers and US$30 to those on photographic safaris inside Serengeti plains, and all rates are charged from a single visitor per each day spent inside the parks.

Generally, it takes the Mount Kilimanjaro climber five to seven days to complete a successful hiking expedition and three full days to complete photographic safari itinerary inside Serengeti National Park which boasts of more than three million big African mammals.

Tanzanian Tourism Minister Zakia Meghji signed and endorsed the new rates last week after cooling down fears from tour operators and hotel stakeholders who earlier opposed the proposed new rates.

The safari outfitters fear their clients will divert to other African wildlife destinations, mainly Kenya and South Africa which offer cheaper rates.

Park entry fees to other parks were not touched deliberately to attract more foreign tourists. Other parks will be charging US$25 and US$15 on daily entry calculations, while the special two parks of Gombe and Mahale whose biggest attractions are chimpanzees, will be charging US$100 under the same entry category.

The National Parks Authority defended its decision to hike park fees and said the move was aimed at promoting a balance number of foreign tourists flocking the two parks and control mass tourism from back-packers and cheap tourists.

Environmentalists have cautioned the National Parks Authority over looming mass tourism in Kilimanjaro and Serengeti, similarly to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, saying the gradual degradation of the parks ecosystem would see Tanzania leading to the Kenyan way of mass tourism.

Tanzania has 14 wildlife parks under the care of the Tanzania National Parks Authority but only those in northern circuit offer tourist services.  

Northern tourist circuit is made up of five national parks and Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority, also a famous tourist stop.

Parks in Tanzania’s southern tourist circuit have their entry fees charged less than those in northern circuit, a move aimed at boosting tourism in the less developed but attractive sites in the southern Tanzania zone.

Serengeti plains and Mount Kilimanjaro are the most frequented tourist hotspots in East Africa, attracting foreign tourists all the year round, but environmentalists have warned of imminent degradation of their natural eco-system through the looming mass tourism.

By Apolinari Tairo

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania (eTurboNews)

September 20, 2005   Posted in: Africa