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| © The Associated Press FILE - In this Friday, Sept. 4, 2015 file photo, a baby mountain gorilla from the family of mountain gorillas named Amahoro, which means "peace" in the Rwandan language, clings to the back of its mother as she forages for food in the dense forest on the slopes of Mount Bisoke volcano in Volcanoes National Park, northern Rwanda. Gorilla tourism is an important income source for Rwanda, but a May 2017 doubling of safari permit fees meant a steep decline in visitors, so now fees have been reduced by 30 percent for the low season starting Nov. 2018 in the hope that visitors will return to the mountains. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File) |
Associated Press
VOLCANOES NATIONAL PARK, Rwanda
Gorilla tourism is an important income source for Rwanda, but a recent increase in permit fees for safaris meant a steep decline in visitors.
Earlier this year the WWF conservation group said the mountain gorilla subspecies was making a comeback, with numbers above 600 from an estimated 480 in 2010 in the Virunga Massif, a mountainous area encompassing parts of Rwanda, Uganda and Congo.
In Rwanda's Volcanoes National Park, tourists routinely trek to see gorillas in their natural habitat. Conservation is big business in the East African nation, where tourism is the top foreign exchange earner.
In May 2017 the government doubled the price of a permit to visit the gorillas from $750 to $1,500, making the fee the highest in the region. A similar fee is $600 in Uganda and $400 in Congo.
Since then Rwanda has lost some tourist business, with some in the hospitality industry saying they have lost income.
"It was chaotic. I can't estimate the percentage of tourists we lost but it was very bad," said Parfait Kajibwami, manager of Le Bambou Gorilla Lodge near the park. The lodge estimates it lost more than 40 percent of its clients.
Some tourists, however, have said they are happy to pay.
"I will only be able to do this once in my life," said Diege Joost from Germany.
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