Nairobi, May 6 -- When the Narok county government increased entry fees for the Maasai Mara National Reserve by up to three times in 2024, it bit more than it could chew.

The results are in, and they show that tourist numbers have dipped for the second year in a row. Official statistics indicate that the number of tourists visiting the world-famous Mara was lower than that of the Amboseli National Park in 2025, the first time in years that the Kajiado-based reserve outperformed the Narok rival in visitor numbers.

According to the Economic Survey 2026 by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), there has been a sharp fall in visitors to the Maasai Mara. From a high of 420,000 in 2023, the number shrank to 343,000 in 2024 and furth...