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Kicheche Mara Camp, Kenya wildlife safari

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Kicheche Mara Camp is a classic tented camp hidden in a beautiful accacia valley overlooking the Olare Orok stream. The camp has only 8 tents the intimate and relaxed atmosphere gives you the opportunity to enjoy a unique experience in the prime wildlife area of the Mara North Conservancy. The camp is located in a prime wildlife area, in this top quality Conservancy, and game viewing starts frequently in the camp itself. Access is from Mara North airstrip, 20 minutes game drive away. The location is also ideal to experience the wildebeest migration.

Accommodation

Kicheche Bush Camp has 6 spacious, fully insect-proof custom designed tents, equipped with twin or double beds, linen, bedside tables, luggage racks and rugs. Bathrooms are en-suite and are equipped with a dresser, flushing toilet and a traditional safari bucket shower with a view. There are comfortable chairs on each verandah overlooking the plains. One tent can be converted into a triple on request.

Guides. Kicheche prides itself in having some of the best guides in the Masai Mara. Most of the guides have spent extensive time in the field with professional wildlife photographers and they all closely follow a strict code of ethics whilst guiding.

Food. Kicheche cooks produce a variety of African and international dishes and special dietary requirements can be catered for. Fresh produce is flown in regularly and bread and pastries are baked daily.

From Masai Mara Park, you can connect to Rwanda for mountain gorilla trekking adventures. Rwanda gorilla safaris are now days combined with Kenya wildlife safaris and these are Africa’s Top Selling tour packages according to tour operators in Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda. This is eased by availability for daily flights connecting these countries served by Rwanda Air and Kenya Airways among others.

Uganda embassy in Washington DC boosts tourism

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Uganda’s Embassy in Washington DC has partnered with National Tour Association (NTA) in North America to boost tourism in Uganda.

Gorilla Tourism

“Uganda’s share of North American tourism market is set to expand following the partnership with the National Tour Association (NTA), a leading player in the travel industry in North America,” Oliver Wonekha, Uganda’s Ambassador to the United States, and Stephen B. Reacher, NTA’s Public Affairs Advocate at Uganda Embassy, Washington, and D.C said.

Wonekha noted that although Uganda has some of Africa’s best tourist attractions, the number of tourists from North America visiting the country hasn’t matched this potential, a recent statement issued by the Embassy said.

She, however, noted that after emerging from a difficult past, Uganda has seen increased investment in tourism infrastructure such as hotels in cities and game parks, access roads, boosting security in and around the tourist attractions.

She said the Embassy is working together with the Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife and Antiquities; Uganda Tourism Board (UTB); Uganda Wildlife Authority and the Association of Uganda Tour Operators (AUTO) to increase the country’s visibility as a unique tourist destination.

Wonekha also said a surge in American tourists to Uganda will also positively impact on other sectors of the economy.

“For instance, with 30 percent of American tourists also in search for investment opportunities, the volume of investments from the United States to Uganda will result in new investments in various sectors. She also said the recently launched East Africa Tourist Visa has already gained appreciation across the travel industry as an important milestone in the region’s tourism.

NTA is a leading business-building association for professionals serving customers travelling to, from and within North America, with a membership of over 1,500 tour operators who buy and package travel products to over 600 destinations around the world, and has unprecedented access to business-to-business networking in the travel industry.

Mr. Steve Reacher said the partnership will enable North American tour operators, airlines and other players in the travel industry to work closely with their Ugandan counterparts so as to market Uganda as a favourable destination for North Americans. He also noted that Africa is the most misunderstood continent—its diversity in terms history, cultures, peoples, and available opportunities. However, those who travel to Africa gain a completely new understanding of the continent, and always want to include Africa on their travel menu.

In November 2014, Uganda is scheduled to host the 39th Annual Congress of the Africa Travel Association (ATA) in Kampala, an opportunity for Uganda to showcase her tourism potential such as unique cultures, mountains lke rwenzori and Elgon, a diversity of wildlife, over 1000 bird species and primates, not forgetting half of the world’s last remaining population of mountain gorillas in Bwindi forest and Mgahinga National park, and for local tour operators to develop partnerships with their counterparts in North America. Many people fly into Uganda for gorilla trekking adventures in the parks mentioned above.

Does a lack of promotion funds explain Vietnam’s decline in total foreign arrivals in 2013?

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HANOI- Foreign tourists to Vietnam made only 2.4 million trips in the first four months of 2013. This represents a decrease of 5.3% compared to the same period last year, reported the Vietnam General Statistics Office (GSO) on Friday.

This seems to be a worrying trend: foreign tourists arriving by air reached only two million , a number down by 6.4%, compared to 348,000 travellers coming by road (+1.3%) and 78,600 travellers by ships (- 3.7%).vietnam

During the four-month period, 1.5 million foreigners came to Vietnam for tourist purpose, down 3.8 % year on year, and another 406,400 visitors came for business, down 5.4 %. The largest incoming market is China with 547,500 travellers, up by 6.7%. China is followed by South Korea (280,100) and Japan (205,000 travellers).

Vietnam received 6.8 million foreign visitors in 2012, earning a revenue of nearly seven billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 13.8% year on year. The country expects to pass the seven million travellers’ mark in 2013.

However, this evolution generates concern among Government’s officials. Local media reported that the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nguyen Thanh Son, declared to feel ashamed of the stagnation of Vietnam’s tourism. While tourism is considered as the key industry which can more easily make money than many other industries in the context of the global economic crisis, it has not made any considerable progress over the last many years.

The comment by Son appeared at the end of March in Tuoi tre newspaper following an embarrassing story at ITB where a picture displayed at the Vietnamese booth represented in fact a Chinese and not a Vietnamese landscape. The Minister blamed the unprofessionalism of Vietnam National Administration of Tourism for the mistake and also for the poor results in terms of tourism evolution. The Deputy Minister explained that VNAT did not succeed in making a more efficient cooperation between localities and travel firms to attract more tourists.

Nguyen Van Tuan, VNAT’s General Director then replied that VNAT would ask Son for an open dialogue about the problems of Vietnam’s tourism. Tuan particularly blames the lack of budget for tourism promotion campaigns. With a budget of only 1.5 to 2 million dollars, Vietnam remains far behind other countries in the region which generally can spend up to 100 million US dollars for campaigning.

Meanwile, long and complicated visa procedures, economic recession in many important inbound markets –especially from Europe- are probably two other plausible explanations to Vietnam’s mediocre performance this year…
(Partial source from Xinhua.net)