{{Rwanda’s private sector and those involved in tourism industry have raised concerns over the hike in gorilla permits pricing likely to affect their business.}}<\/p>\n
Rwanda Development Board recently confirmed plans to implement changes to current gorilla permit pricing. <\/p>\n
The prices have been increased by 50% and this will take effect from June 1st, 2012 save for prior bookings made before this date.<\/p>\n
The increase will see foreign non-residents pay $750 as opposed to the current $500 to visit the gorillas; foreigners residing in Rwanda will pay$375 instead of $250, Rwanda nationals $50 up from $33 respectively.<\/p>\n
Reports put across by the private sectors say changes will have lasting repercussions on their industry and the image of the country.<\/p>\n
The mountain gorillas are one of Rwanda’s top tourism revenue earners, accounting for 90 per cent of park revenue generated in the country.<\/p>\n
“The implementation of this increase was done without due consultation and we regret the manner in which this was done despite our attempts to consult on this process,\u201d a statement signed by the chairman of tourism chamber in Private Sector Federation (PSF) reads in parts.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have already seen strong reactions from our partners, and we are very sure that this is going to have a negative impact on our businesses and the industry at large,” <\/p>\n
Rwanda’s tourism receipts leaped to $200 million in 2010, up 14 per cent from 2009. In 2011, the sector generated $251million.<\/p>\n
In a press statement released after the increase of permit pricing in gorilla, RDB CEO John Gara said; \u201cThis increase comes at a time when there is significant growth of the gorilla population as well as an increasing demand for gorilla tourism.”<\/p>\n
“We are very committed to sustain our efforts in conservation in order to protect their environment as well as the rich biodiversity that exist in our national parks.\u201d Gara added.<\/p>\n
The population of mountain gorillas has increased by 26.3 per cent over the last seven years with a 3.7 percent annual growth, according to Gorilla Census conducted in April 2010.<\/p>\n
{{ENDS}}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{Rwanda’s private sector and those involved in tourism industry have raised concerns over the hike in gorilla permits pricing likely to affect their business.}} Rwanda Development Board recently confirmed plans to implement changes to current gorilla permit pricing. The prices have been increased by 50% and this will take effect from June 1st, 2012 save […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[75],"byline":[158],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-1723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tourism","tag-homenews","byline-b_igi_adm1n"],"bylines":[{"id":158,"name":"b_igi_adm1n","slug":"b_igi_adm1n","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":1}],"contributors":[{"id":158,"name":"b_igi_adm1n","slug":"b_igi_adm1n","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":1}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1723\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1723"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=1723"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=1723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}