Pulse Live: Kenya can sustainably tap into the world’s most renowned park - Maasai Mara

There are few places in the world which can compare to the Maasai Mara National Reserve located in southwestern Kenya, along the Tanzanian border.

Wild animals including Lions, Cheetahs, Elephants, Zebras, Hippos, and Wildebeest freely roam the expansive grassy plains with rolling hills in a perfect symbiotic relationship.

The Mara is best known for the "Great Migration" where an estimated 2.5 million animals make a round-trip journey of 2,000 kilometers in search of food and water across the Serengeti ecosystem between Tanzania and Kenya, attracting thousands of tourists annually.

In 2018, the Maasai Mara was voted Africa's leading national park at the World Travel Awards and it’s not hard to see why.

“The Maasai Mara is such a special place. It has so much to offer in terms of the landscape, in terms of the sheer amount of wildlife there is to spot all year round, in terms of the culture and it’s not a coincidence that everyone in the world who knows about Kenya, knows about the Maasai Mara. The Mara is the most renowned park in the world, who wouldn’t want to go on safari to the Mara?” poses Nicole Hankar, an avid traveler and the General Manager of last minute: mara, Kenya’s newest booking platform making luxury travel to the Mara more affordable.

Literally, everyone is scrambling to go to the Mara. Last month, hotels in Maasai Mara national reserve ran out of bed space due to increased tourist arrivals who flocked into the area to witness the annual spectacular wildebeest migration.

Mara National Reserve management said more than 100,000 tourists had already witnessed the migration and more were expected to come before the spectacle ends in September.

“The number of tourists has been increasing between April and this month. In April we had 9,000 tourists. This shot to 11,000 in May and 26,535 in June. We expect the number to go up to 100,000 by the end of this month,” Mara National Reserve administrator Christine Daabash said.