Enterprise

County joins hands with KWS to market Meru National Park

WATER

Waterbuck at Meru National Park. FILE PHOTO | NMG

The Meru county government has entered into a partnership with the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) to market the Meru National Park.

Executive in charge of Tourism, Trade and Cooperatives Maingi Mugambi said the department has come up with programmes that would bring on board institutions of higher learning in a marketing drive of the park, especially through social media.

“We know the park has great potential since it has diverse wildlife that can only be seen in this conservation area. At the same time, we recognise the power of social media,”Mr Mugambi said last week when the county and KWS hosted more than 200 students from universities for a tour of the park to mark the World Tourism Day.

The students from Meru and Kenya Methodist Universities, Meru National Polytechnic and Nkabune Technical Institute took a game drive and posted their experiences on social media platforms.

The park senior warden Bakari Chongwa said the KWS would closely work with the county government, adding that conservation will only succeed with the involvement of the devolved unit.
He however lamented that visitor numbers to the park had over the past four years from 2013, plunged from 20,000 to 10,000 last year.

“We have the potential to attract double the number but one of the most serious challenges we face is a missing link between visitors coming to Meru town and the park. I urge the private sector to set up tour operation services and provide this link,” Mr Bakari said.

“Young people are moving brands on social media in a unique way which is not only appealing to them but also captures the attention of market leaders and this is what we intend to tap.”

The park management is banking on the power of social media to market the facility.

The park’s prospect is also hampered by poor road network but the national government is reconstructing the17-kilometre Meru-Maua road to the park.

The KWS, Mr Bakari said, would also exploit the park's history especially regarding famous conservationist George Adamson's life.

The park, straddling the eastern slopes of Mount Kenya, was in the 1970s and 80s a popular Safari destination with thousands of elephants, rhinos and a host of other animals roaming the savana grasslands and forests.

What however put the park on the world map were the famed conservationists George and Joy Adamson. Their best-selling book and film Born Free which documented the Adamsons' life as they walked with Elsa, the tamed lioness, catapulted the park to the global tourist circuit, becoming Kenya’s best-selling sanctuary.

With more than 400 bird species, the park is also a bird watcher’s paradise.