By Winnie Kabintie

Tucked within the city center and it’s skyscrapers, the Nairobi National Park is quite a beauty to behold, and while this part of the reknown Magical Kenya remains a dream safari destination to many foreigners, you would be surprised at the high number of Kenyans who have never visited the park, either due to lack of interest or sheer disregard of the gem.

“The World’s only Wildlife Capital”

The Nairobi National Park is apparently the only park in the world within a city and it’s home to variety of wildlife including the endangered black rhino, lions, leopards, cheetahs, hyenas, buffaloes, giraffes and diverse birdlife with over 400 species recorded.

The National Park also boasts of beautiful park’s picnic sites, three campsites and walking trails for hikers.

Nairobi has been on a lockdown for the last three months as the country tries to control the spread of Covid-19 and this has left Nairobians short of outdoor recreation facilities to kill the boredom of staying home.

“Every cloud has it’s silver lining” as they say and the Nairobi National park has become a “preferred safari destination” to Nairobians during this lockdown period, as scores of city dwellers take to the park for game drives and picnics.

As the joke now goes on social media, where Nairobians are taking to flout their Nairobi National Park experience through incredible photos; “If you’ve not been to the Nairobi National Park this Lockdown, are you even Kenyan”.

The tourism sector has been one of the biggest hit in the wake of the corona virus pandemic and the country has been trying to come up with incentives to boost domestic tourism, currently and even post corona.

“We have allocated Ksh. 500 million for post corona campaign. We will spend Ksh. 200 million for PR & communication and Ksh. 300 million for marketing campaigns in our markets,” CS Balala said.

Filming, Visiting Nairobi Parks Made Cheaper

Tourism Cabinet Secretary Najib Balala has reduced park entry fees for Kenyans and International visitors by 50 percent, effective July 1, 2020.

The CS also  announced a reduction of film fee charges by 50% to shoot documentaries in the Parks.

 Nairobi National Parks Virtual Safari Tour

The Kenya Wildlife Service last week launched a Virtual Safari live stream campaign to showcase game safaris in some of the parks and reserves across the country.

“Our international tourism business is completely cut off and we have to still share destination memories with travelers and that is why we are unveiling a virtual tour safari to connect visitors with the destination”, said the CS.

The six-week expedition across the country will be part of the ongoing #MagicAwaits campaign led by the Kenya Tourism Board (KTB) that is aimed at ensuring that the world and travelers remain connected to destination Kenya even during the current Covid-19 lockdown period when there is restricted movement globally.

Tourism and Travel Health and Safety Protocols

Kenya is also among the first countries to come up with Tourism and Travel Health and Safety Protocols, which will be applied in reopening of the country’s Tourism and Travel industry.

“The Tourism and Travel Health and Safety Protocols we’re launching today, are aligned with @WHOand the @UNWTO reopening guidelines. I urge all countries to have one global integrated Travel Health and Safety Protocol, to ease #safetravels to all visitors,” Balala said during the launch.