Tanzania News: Ngorongoro Braces to Promote Other Tourist Sites

Shifting sand along Olduvai Gorge,Ngorongoro

The Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA) intends to launch a vigorous promotion of other attractive tourist sites in its precincts besides the famous crater.

These are to include the Empakai crater and the Olduvai and Laetoli archaeological sites, says the chief conservator Dr. Freddy Manongi.

"It is high time we promote other attractions within Ngorongoro including the beautiful Empakai crater as well as the historical Olduvai Gorge and Laetoli sites where the first human ancestors lived millions of years ago", he said.

The amphitheatre-like Ngorongoro crater remains the main tourist attraction in the 8,292 square kilometre conservation area. Available statistics indicate it attracts about 500,000 visitors a year.

However, in recent years there has been increasing concerns over the number of vehicles entering the crater. "We have been getting complaints from tourists who think there are so many vehicles descending into the crater, thus distracting them from enjoying the natural scenery", he added.

According to Dr. Manongi, the authority is mulling ways to reduce the number of vehicles getting into the caldera, one of them being to introduce hot air balloons to take the visitors over the area.

"We have received proposals from some firms which want to introduce hot air balloon tourism. We are working on the idea as one of the possible measures to cut down the number of vehicles in the crater", he said.

This year, NCAA has targeted to receive over Sh.60 billion from tourism but Dr Manongi says their current headache was how to control traffic into the protected area which also has a small population of the endangered rhinos.

The high tourism season expected to kick off end of next month, the number of vehicles descending into the crater at a particular time could reach 400 a day.

The Ngororongoro crater floor and the forests on its slopes supports a large resident population of wildlife estimated at 25,000, predominantly the grazing animals.

The traditional livestock keepers are allowed to live in other areas in the vast conservation area but human settlements have been prohibited in the crater since the 1970s.