Catherine Mackon honest tourism
Most people go to Kenya in search of the big five game animals; often, they also get a chance to visit a Masai village. The usual scenario is this. Tourists are taken to a village by their driver guide, and each pays about $20 (€13) for a tour, totalling $100 (€65) for a jeepload of tourists. They learn about the Masai way of life, such as their diet of mostly milk (and meat once a month), herbal medicines and cattle farming. Then they get a chance to buy some of the women's beadwork.
What tourists don't know is that while they are off buying their beads, the elders have to give $96 of their $100 back to the driver guides. That's a big commission for a driver who is already earning a salary, and probably a separate tip to boot. But that's how it has always been done. Until recently.
Eighteen months ago the Travel Foundation, a UK charity, was told about this practice. It funded a responsible-tourism consultant, Dr Cheryl Mvula, to investigate. During the next year she worked with five villages in the Mara Triangle to find out why they had let this happen and how they could put a stop to it.
According to the villagers, the driver guides had always given them the impression that tourists were only interested in lions and zebras, not them. The villagers thought the drivers were doing them a favour by bringing them up to buy their crafts.
Dr Mvula put them right by showing them travel brochure after travel brochure, all filled with Masai images. She assured them that they were famous the world over and that there was no such thing as a hard sell where the Masai were concerned.
Within a couple of months they created Mara Triangle Maasai Villages Association and introduced a cashless system, with each village invoicing tourist lodges or tour operators for cultural visits. All cheques were then to be paid into one of the newly formed village bank accounts.
Late last year I met Dr Mvula and these villagers at the association's first agm, under an acacia tree in the Mara. They hugged us and applauded each other when they found out that they had increased their tourism revenue by 800 per cent, which they agreed should be spent on schools, boreholes and renewable forms of energy.
Most lodges in the Mara Triangle, such as those run by Abercrombie Kent, CC Africa and Serena Hotels, have embraced the new system. There is one company that reportedly is the exception. During my visit I met two Masai villagers who host guests from this company. They asked
Dr Mvula if she could make the practice stop. She asked this company. But so far it has not shaken on an ethical deal.
In January the Kenyan Association of Tour Operators backed the new scheme. An 800 per cent increase in tourist income is great, as long as there are tourists. So first they need to get the visitors back.
If you are making most of the quiet lodges and bargain rates, don't forget the achievements of the Masai. Ask your operator if it supports the scheme; if it doesn't, ask why not. This is not charity. It is honest and fair tourism.
• macktourism@yahoo.co.uk
• Catherine Mack is author of Ecoescape Ireland, to be published in June. www.ecoescape.org