NAIROBI, Kenya, July 20 – Masai Mara National Reserve is an expansive savanna wilderness that hosts admirable wild animals such as lions, cheetahs, elephants, and hyenas, among others.
It is its diversity that keeps attracting local and international visitors every single year.
From poor to rich to super rich, the game park is open to all, depending on wallet size and status.
Visitors can choose to stay at exclusive tented camps that are located inside the park or rent outside in Narok Town and its vicinity.
Being a once-in-a-lifetime experience, some tourists choose to stay in luxurious camps inside the Masai Mara.
One of the popular safari camps is Ngerende, which runs two properties that include Ngerende in the Wild Lakeview and Ngerende in the Wild Riverview, offering 16 high-end suites that can host 32 people.
“We target high-end clientele. Most of our clients are repeat guests and referrals, who are 70% of the business,” Its owner Eunice Kaigai tells Capital Business.
Being a high-end facility, customers pay between Sh283,200 ($2,000) in peak season and Sh113,280 ($800) in low season.
So, what does Ngerende mean?
“Ngerende is a Masai name, which means a flat area surrounded by hills,” Kaigai says.
The facility, which was first started in July 2013, was shut down in 2019 and reopened this year.
The reason it was closed was because of personal reasons as well as lockdown measures that were introduced during the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, the pandemic taught him a good lesson about diversifying her customer base after the number of international bookings dropped.
Her customers are mostly from the USA, Canada, Europe, and Asian countries.
The facility has hosted about 3,000 customers from within and outside Kenya since it began.
Initially, Kaigai ran the facility with her late husband. Since he passed away, she says that she has been through thick and thin.
“It has been a huge challenge because he (my husband) was instrumental in the sense (that) he supported my vision….with him not being there, of course, it has had a huge impact on our lives….., ” she narrates.
“But having said that, keeping his legacies is what has kept me…..”
Apart from Ngerende, she also runs another property called Ngerende Island Lodge that was impacted by flooding.
“But hopefully, in the course of the year, we should also be reopening,” the mother of two added.
She has also divested into the land business, where she sells properties in Kikuyu and Nanyuki. Kaigai is also the founder of Jaya, a company that makes sanitary towels for women.
Every bit and piece of the facility has been curated to have a little impact on the surrounding nature.
For instance, the villas are made out of canvas tents and raised wood foundations that are environmentally friendly.
“Since we are targeting high-end clientele, we make them feel comfortable, provide all those niceties in bulk villas, and create that nice ambience whereby clients will feel comfortable and come relax and be pampered.”
Since it hosts clients from around the globe, their menu comprises Chinese, Kenyan, and Indian cuisines.
While some ingredients are sourced from farms in Laikipia, Kitengela, and within local communities, they also have an in-house garden.
They source their ingredients from an in-house house garden, Nairobi, and Kajiado.
The facility has employed 35 individuals directly and many more indirectly.
The facility offers visitors vantage points to see one of the wonders of the world, wildbeast migration, as it is perched just beside Masai Mara’s lush Paradise Plain.
